> Hi, > > My name is Maarten Brouwers, I've been reading messages on this > mailinglist for already some time now, but never thought I could really > contribute. But now there is this topic about a new website. > > Let's first introduce myself. I live in the Netherlands (Utrecht), I've > graduated in Interaction Design (MA), Multimedia Design & Technology > (B) > (I got both diploma's finishing more or less the same study) and will > start Human-Technology Interaction (MSc) in Eindhoven in February. > Furthermore I've decent CSS and (X)HTML knowledge and a fair amount of > JavaScript. Welcome :) > > I'm interested in interaction design in the first place, and > furthermore > I have a great interest for information architecture (not that these > are > independent). Visual design is not my strongest point, however, I > believe this really contributes to the user experience, which also > tends > to add to greater usability. > > First off all, do not feel offended by anything I say here, it is not > personal. What I've seen till now are merely duplicates of the old > site, > just removing only small bits and spicing up other bits. Is there a > reason for this? I know that there will be many users who will be > really > upset when great changes will confront them, but I believe this is the > right moment to make such big changes. When I look at the latest builds > for OOo 2.0 I believe OOo may be what firefox 1.0 was for the > Mozilla.org project (in effect that is). It integrates much better in > the operating system (well, at least it does for my WinXP install > (ugh)), and it looks more attractive and more user friendly. A great > product needs a great place to promote this product. Good point. > > With OOo2.0 OOo is ready for the masses, so it needs to be targetted > more on these. I guess programmers also like to see that the product > they are working on is popular. I think this attitude is already here > among some. > > This also means OOo needs more (house-)style, but for what I've picked > up, these discussions take place somewhere else? At the marketing group > maybe? A new style has been introduced for the OOo builds, which can be > called at least a positive progression. The site should also share some > of this style and not the begin 90ties style (however this may be in > fashion these days, this will not be the web/interface-design from this > period) > > So my question is why nobody has tried to start from scratch, trying to > create a site map first (to get sections fixed, and repositioned), and > then try to design for this new site? I still have a few weeks left for > working on this, so I would really like to give it a go, as I really > appreciate working with this great Office suite. Feel free. However, as you say later on, SourceCast is the limiting factor. > > I still have some more practical questions: > > In what way is SourceCast limiting design? Is this piece of software > demanding 3 column output, or is it just those who make the templates > have a preference for 3 column lay-outs? It is not demanding three column, but the Header has to be there, the top navigation bar has to be there, and the contents and body part must be there. This is quite limiting as far as design. Also, we cannot change too much, since the SourceCast servlets have specific output that cannot be changed very easily, in fact, it is near impossible. > > Can anyone just design a few static sites, and is someone entitled to > cut these into SourceCast templates or? Well... I am going to cut mine up into templates after it is finished (already done a little). > > My excuses when my questions have been answered already, but threads > were going so deep, going in too much detail, that sometimes I ( :$) > stopped reading. That's fine. > > For so far. > > Kind regards, > > > Maarten Brouwers
Good to have you on board. Kind Regards, -- Matthew Wardrop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
