Redesigning the English Dept. Web
(Last revised 3/6/00)
(Last revised 3/6/00)
| 1. Our Current Dept. Web Site: A Critique |
Content and Structure Problems
Support Issues
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2. What Are the Main Things We Want to Present About Ourselves? |
| The basic idea is to be the first English department in the nation
to implement the Web in a full way to serve the related purposes of publicity,
community-building, teaching, research, administration, and fund-raising.
There are few, perhaps no, good English Dept. Web sites in existence—i.e.,
sites that show any strategic planning, consciousness of the full capabilities
of the Internet, or (especially) design smarts. We have a chance to leap-frog
the competition and so bring our Dept. Web site into alignment with the
cutting-edge quality of such major departmental initiatives as the MRG,
Transcriptions, the Early Modern Center, VoS, the Affirmative Action site,
the Beckett Endpage, etc. Increasingly, the Web will be the main way that
the department shows itself to other faculty and students (and also an
important way for it to communicate with its own students, faculty, and
staff). Few, if any, go to the library or career center anymore to look
us up in a catalogue. They go to the Web instead—a fact that is especially
critical in terms of faculty and graduate-student recruitment. "Big-name"
English departments (fill in with most top-10 or -20 names here) have
little if any reputation on the Web. UCSB's English Dept. really stands
out in this regard. We ought to capitalize on it. Specifically, here is what we want to present about ourselves through the Web in a way that shows us to be at the top of our profession in using information technology:
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| C. Our relation to the broader professional and intellectual world |
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| D. Our program information, course listings, directory information, contact information, etc. |
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How can we bring some excitement to the Web presentation of this information
about requirements, etc.? |
| 3. Comparison Web Sites |
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Some Other University or Dept. Sites to Look At
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| 4a. Possible Logical Structure of the New Site (used by Alan to introduce issues on Feb. 16th, 2000) [note added after initial redesign meetings: the site logic sketched below still applies, but particular implementation may be influenced by the UCSB Anthropology paradigm) (For the current working outline of the new site, see below) | ||
| Front Page(s) | Secondary Layer of Pages (may be skipped through direct navigation from front page to primary materials) |
Primary Materials |
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Home Page (provides navigation links to both the secondary layer of pages and directly to the most crucial primary materials) |
Overview Pages
Gateways to Utility Pages
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Examples:
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| 4.b. Current Working Outline for New Site (last revised 3/6/00) |
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| 4.c. Graphic Design Concept (last revised 3/6/00) |
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Note from Alan on Eric's design idea: Dear all: Please take a look when you have time at the online "diary" of design thought that Eric Feay has started for our new dept. Web site. I think he is really onto something. The idea he expresses in the diary has powerful graphic appeal as well as metaphorical relevance for what we do. The idea is to design the site graphically around some image motif that comes from literature itself--perhaps some motif (I am improvising on his idea here) that could be identified at various locations on the site not just with a single allusion (e.g., the Wuthering Heights image Eric mentions) but many such allusions across the periods. (It's sort of the same idea as using "Yellow Woods" for our alternative careers page.) The image motifs that Eric examples all have to do with intersections or transitions (windows, gates, doors, paths, etc.). This seems right to me (because our graphic design should not be tied to a particular period, literature, or content; and because it allows for the most flexible use of the design). The idea is elegant, simple, and visually promising. It made my strike my forehead and say, "why didn't we see this earlier?" As Eric so incisively argues, there is nothing interesting about showing pictures of our department or campus per se; what we want to show is what we see when we read, research, and teach—a vision that literature itself helps image of connections, openings, transitions, vistas. Such a design unified around a single (or set of) such images (plus perhaps identifying quotations) would really distinguish our site from every other English Dept. site. Depending on the ideas chosen, the motif could be worked into the site not just at the level of photos or illustrations but buttons, navigation tools, etc. Eric's initial draft of a design (with placeholder images only).
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| 5. Staffing for the New Site? |
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| 6. Timeline and To-Do List (last revised 3/6/00) |
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These class notes are for a course in the Transcriptions Project | Page content by Alan Liu | Last revised 3/6/00