April 28, 2004 | View Comments (41) | Category: Version 2
Summary: Taking suggestions for sites that you would like to see redesigned for Version 2.
First the deadline for April is this Friday. Hopefully people are working on them. There are prizes as there are every month (for past winners that haven't received them yet, they are going out on Friday). I will post them up on the Version 2 site later this week.
Over the past month I have received a couple suggestions for sites that people would like to see redesigned. I already have next month's redesign, but would like to hear what everyone else would like to see redesigned. Try to only suggest sites that you yourself would enjoy redesigning. To make this discussion useful why not include why you think it should be redesigned (besides its ugly).
Next month is an Apple site. But which one? :)
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http://www.useit.com/
Jacob Nielsen's site sucks. It needs some graphics, better layout, you name it.
Peter (http://www.mouldingname.info/home.html)
the gimp. linux.org. Any of Sun's assorted Java sites.
But here's my #1 suggestion: the AARP site. Since AARP is the American Association of Retired Persons, I'd like to see a version of it that's old-person friendly, very easy to use, easy to read, compliant with accessibility standards, section 508, etc, working with screen readers and braille browsers. And maybe looking a little bit less... generic... while we're at it.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
The Open Directory Project would be near the top of my list. It's one of the most antiquated-looking directories out there, though it's probably the most useful.
And there's always the Government of Canada. ;-)
Andrew Dunning (http://www.webinspiration.ca/)
Do people still use the open directory project? I thought that thing died 5 years ago after the last major company dropped their support of it....
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
AARP, DMOZ, ICQ...
C'mon, if you're going to continue this contest, at least make it challenging -
Visitdublin.com
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Oh, fine, Mark, if you're going to be that way...
Dublin's in english. :-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
From a commercial standpoint, how about IKEA.
Visually it is an interesting site, but usually difficult to navigate.
Oh wait. This contest is about making things pretty with CSS, not useful or usable. ;P
Actually scrivs, do you intend to make this a .org-like contest only? I know imdb.com is commercial, but I wonder about giving commercial sites ideas for free on how to redesign...
Matthew Oliphant (http://usabilityworks.typepad.com)
Amazon.com
No, really. Amazon.com
Lots of people have mentioned that their site structure is nigh-useless, and that they mostly navigate the site through its search feature. It would be interesting to see if someone can come up with better information architecture.
Sergio (http://overcaffeinated.net)
JC - thanks for pointing out the reusit comp. All entries were better than the original I think!
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/ Finding relevant info here is difficult and all web pages seem different, probably created by different people. It would be a challenge.
Peter (http://www.mouldingname.info/home.html)
Matthew -
Excellent point. What was that Zeldman posted about giving away free comps?
It be a big assumption to think that someone from the design team / agency for these corp sites aren't aware of this contest.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
I'm gonna put up a challenge:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/
Vinnie Garcia (http://blog.vinniegarcia.com)
All the sites mentioned are built with two or three columns - with the exception of Dublin, which has four.
Don't I recall correctly (don't know for sure because there's no search ;)) a post concerning breaking out of the bloggy look and feel of 2 and 3 column sites?
What better way to start than to take on the challenge of a 4-column design?
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
I know I have posted this Amazon reduex before, but since Sergio suggested an Amazon redesign...
How about an Amazoogle (since together the have become the Web) redesign? ;)
Matthew Oliphant (http://usabilityworks.typepad.com)
As far as commerical sites go, if IMDB has been around this long I really don't think they have any plans for a redesign. So if you think they will "steal" the participants designs I could try to avoid the commercial sites. But if they do nothing I can do about it. In any case there are some interesting suggestions here.
Of course the people making the suggestions are the ones who haven't entered yet :-P
Scrivs (http://forevergeek.com/)
besides, when you came up with imdb in the first place, you didn't know they were commercial... wasn't til someone pointed out it was an amazon company.
I think you may want to consider avoiding commercial sites... more to avoid possible legal issues with trademark usage and so on...
But as for the site using the winning (or any submitted) design... really, hell, what's the point of having a redesign contest if the site being redesigned doesn't benefit from it? I know if I was the one who did the winning site for PG, I'd want to see my design on their site instead of the eyesore they started with... and all the contributors would want to see *someone's* design applied, at least in part. Much more satisfaction (not to mention ego stroking) in that... and that's a better award than the admittedly nice prizes offered for each contest.
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Well, there'll be trademark issues with any site, but a .com _is_ more likely to do something about it.:)
Scrivs, I apologize. There's been too much thought going into this beyond the intent of the post.
I'd like to see something new done with online newspapers. Not news sites, like cnn.com, but the online versions of print papers (with the exception of International Herald Tribue which I think is a well developed site.
Matthew Oliphant (http://usabilityworks.typepad.com)
"...Of course the people making the suggestions are the ones who haven't entered yet..."
So, how many contests allow the participants to choose the challenge?
"Scriv's it's your board"
"I'll take 9 Rules for $1,000, Alex"
"doodabloop...and the answer is..."
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
YAHOO!!!!!! That site sure could get up to speed on look and design. Yea it works and the standard blue links are its calling, but I think it would be fun to see a bunch of redesigns of YAHOO! :) that would be cool.
my 2 cents
Bryan (http://www.gamecubecheats.info)
I'd like to second the suggestion for Slashdot. Great content, but poor design makes for slow loading time and difficulty reading the content. And it's just ugly :)
theresa (http://www.dandelionwine.org)
GameFAQs could use a redesign.
It's a great site and an invaluable resource to all gamers (God knows how many times it has saved me). But it's not very pleasing to the eye, is it? It's like being time warped back to -97. :)
Jimmy Nordlund (http://www.digitalvenues.se)
Jimmy -
Good timing... but a little late. GameFAQs released a new design yesterday. (Ok, I admit it, I was cheating at Secret of Mana)
As for slashdot, well....
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
What the heck?! Here I am complaining about GameFAQs ancient design and as I'm checking my link I notice that they have actually redesigned their site. The new design went active as of today. Crazy. O_o
I guess I should have checked GameFAQs before I posted my suggestion (not that it's that great now either, but it's definitely an improvement).
Jimmy Nordlund (http://www.digitalvenues.se)
JC:
Yeah, some timing huh? :)
And you are right, they released the design yesterday, not today as i stated. My bad.
Jimmy Nordlund (http://www.digitalvenues.se)
Some sugestions:
http://www.linuxbase.org/
http://www.incidents.org/
http://www.tldp.org/
/jp
jens persson (http://persson.cx)
My school's site would be a great choice. Their site doesn't HTML or CSS validate and the site actually breaks IE5 for Mac. (I have literally had to shut a mac down & reboot because the site locked up the whole computer.)
Also, there's no unified style if you leave the main page. There's nothing connecting anything except the URL.
http://www.cpcc.edu
Aristan (http:/www.malbela.com)
9rules.com/whitespace?
*ducks*
Not saying that this is poorly designed, but it would be interesting to see how other people would have this site built.
David House
Hi,
I would suggest:
http://www.wcigroup.com
http://www.tgifridays.co.uk
http://www.bmg.co.uk
http://www.qas.com
http://www.redwoodgroup.net
http://www.fabermaunsell.com
http://www.vikingdirect.com
http://www.tbwa-london.com
http://www.law-now.com
http://www.centrefile.co.uk
http://www.kraftfoods.co.uk
http://www.denplan.co.uk
http://www.pinnacle-psg.com
http://www.edringtongroup.com
http://www.coi.gov.uk
Nainil Chheda (http://services.eliteral.com/search-engine-optimization-india/)
Nainil, Version2 is a monthly contest not a decade long contest :-P
David, maybe I will make Whitespace the championship site ;-)
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
The British Web Design and Marketing Association (http://www.bwdma.com/). It's touting itself to be the professional organisation for Web designers in the UK. I think its heart is in the right place with lines such as 'The ethical home of uk web design' and 'Raising e-business standards'.
But the site is butt ugly, inside and out. It is entirely uninviting visually, the information architecture is all over the place and esentially does nothing to convince potential memebers that it knows what it is doing as an organisation for Web professionals.
Hardly an advert for the UK Web industry.
Richard Rutter (http://www.clagnut.com/)
I'd have to suggest First.gov or FirstGov.gov, depending on who you ask... I happen to think branding the site "First.gov" makes a little more sense ;)
Curtis Buys
How about picking one of the sites you discuss in your 'Let's be honest' article? I think it would tie in very nicely.
Adrian Rinehart-Balfe (http://www.boogenstein.com/)
Another idea:
http://mon.lycos.com/
This is an example only, since mon.cgi is a frontend for the mon ( http://www.kernel.org/software/mon/ ) network monitoring daemon. The application contains tons of good functionality but the inteface is so 90's and an IA makeover would not hurt.
Another possibility is nagios ( http://www.nagios.org/demo.php for links to demos).
jens persson (http://persson.cx)
The Guide Horse Foundation would be a great candidate for a Version 2, Scrivs. Fascinating site. Did you know that their intelligence can be checked by seeing how much they can rotate their ears!
Peter(01010) (http://www.01010.org/)
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#1
Slashdot.
I don't know if I can put my finger on exactly why, but when I think of a site that looks old and antiquated, it's the first one that pops to mind. It's a site that requires a lot of text but the lack of sufficient whitespace just makes it look cluttered. I'd be interested to see what people do with it.
fliphed (http://www.manyhighways.com)