Comments
On August 22, 2005 8:22 AM Bruno Kerrien said:Very beautiful site with nice color scheme. However, the vertical tabs are not really legible (IMHO) and some ugly scrollbars appear in some "News & Events" divs. But nice work anyway :)
On August 22, 2005 9:29 AM Dave Cardwell said:I agree with Bruno - excellent use of colour. I like the very clear hover effects on the links. Again, however, I'm not too keen on the vertical tabs. All in all, an excellent site deserving of recognition on CSS Beauty.
On August 22, 2005 10:16 AM Peter said:Same comments as Bruno and Dave, the only thing I'm not enjoying the vertical tabs, but otherwise, everything else looks excellent. Well done!
On August 22, 2005 11:11 AM Toby said:Don't want to be overly critical, as I agree with the comments above - this is a great looking website. However, take a look at it with Firefox and try to increase the font size. Things go a little crazy. I would prefer this site if it allowed users to select different font sizes (part and parcel of using CSS is to make your sites more accessible), but still a GREAT looking piece of work.
On August 22, 2005 12:33 PM Linh said:CSS and related aside, the color scheme is most attractive and the first thing I notice.
On August 22, 2005 1:18 PM rookie said:Beautiful... nothing else to say. Great color scheme... nicely laid out. Good use of space. A good thing though would have been titles on the image links to let users know where it is taking them to. Also, I do agree that the side navs are not very legible. For design it is gorgeous. For web standard... I would say questionable
On August 23, 2005 4:49 AM Nathan said:Defiantly a nice colour scheme and the layout is very interesting, I agree with the other comments on the horizontal tabs.
Also I'm going to go with Toby's comments on the wacky layout with increased font sizes, at first I thought the site was all out of wack (as I had my font size set 2 notches up and forgot to reset it) but it all came together when I reset my FS.
I think with a small amount of tweaking this site could be cut above it's current state, and with a design like that it will be more than worthy of note.
On August 23, 2005 5:54 AM dave said:When I first saw this site I thought WOW and deservedly so. BUT...anything after the home page deteriorates ptretty poorly. I agree with whats been said - the tabs dont work for me and the text sizing is a n issue. The subsequent pages look like they have been put together in rather messily - almost like they played with the design too much. e.g. http://www.simmons.edu/gslis/about/facts.shtml - there's a myriad of poor readability and styling. Theres too many font styles, the main links are images and it's not good for usability. Turn off styling and it really is badly put together. In Firefox you are presented with an image telling you that your browser is not standards compliant. I hate to be over critical but the front page is beautifully done but I think it's rather cheeky to have a standards warning when the site is so badly coded.
On August 24, 2005 7:42 PM neal kernohan said:well, i'm afraid i'm going to wade in here with my big muddy boots on. like many large college sites, this one wreaks of someone's dream to build a cohesive, beautiful site, only to be stifled by legacy weeds and design by committee. i can of course only guess that this is what has happened, but regardless, it's noticeable from the outset, even from the first page and navigation structure, that it is either a stroke of genius or thrown together by a large group of people, notably all with their own agenda, armed with coloured markers and post-it pads.
moving on from the first page (i had to, it was messing with my head) the navigation is a little more relaxed and well structured. it did take me a little while to find the way home (sneaky navigation) and then i found myself on 'sites' that only vaguely resembled those from whence i'd came.
i could go on, but it's late. overall, the colours throughout the site and that simmons logo, the one at the VERY top of the frame, do make it feel like one big site. but the mass mix of navigation, the fonts, the navigation, the imagery and the navigation all make it a very wacky, quite disturbing site to visit, navigate, relax in and read.
i doubt it's all the designers fault though, i think it was the eleven other people in the room.
On August 25, 2005 3:08 PM Shaun Gummere said:First, thanks for featuring our site. It's a real privilege to have our work here alongside so many other talented designer's work. To those who just love the site -- awesome! For those with criticism, keep it coming as well -- it'll help us improve our work.
This being said, I did want to provide some context for everyone reading this entry (sorry for the long post). The design, coding, maintenance, back-end technology, everything, is handled by a small in-house web team. What you see in the general design across the site is the result of about two years effort to implement a cohesive brand and to move us -- slowly but surely -- toward web standards. Our earliest sites, such as the undergraduate college, contain rudimentary CSS, as we had to support a large internal installed base of Netscape 4 users, many of whom didn't care or understand what we were trying to do. With each site we've tackled, we've improved our code, step by step, applying what we learned in the previous project to the next. We're not big enough to revisit sites until they are due for the next redesign, so what you see as you traverse the site are sections done over the course of the last few years.
In terms of the design and color schemes, these were quite intentional, and are part of our integrated marketing communications: each school has its own color scheme on purpose. Most of our prospective students browse directly to their school's site, rather than clicking across the site to assess the design. In addition, each section matches print publications produced for each school; so, in effect, we've managed to brand each school while establishing for the first time an overall Simmons brand. The home page goes one step further as it reflects and ties into a public transport ad campaign.
For those of you who've worked in large organizations with fairly limited resources, you can attest to the competing demands across the organization that manifest themselves in the website, and you know the challenges we've faced. You often have to balance the ideal against what's possible. This being said, all in all, I'm quite proud of what we've been able to do in a relatively short period of time, the amount of visual cohesion we've achieved, I would have said at the outset was rather unlikely. What's more, we know we will move these sites, bit by bit, iteration by iteration, closer to what all designers who care about standards and accessibility want to see. If you look across these sites, you will be able to see this progress in the code by comparing the undergraduate section, for example, to the CAS Graduate Studies (www.simmons.edu/gradstudies) or the School of Management (www.simmons.edu/som), which are the most recent projects to date. If you've got specific questions or recommendations, we'd love to hear from you at webmaster@simmons.edu. Again, thanks for featuring us!
- On August 25, 2005 4:17 PM neal kernohan said:
respect due Shaun and it's good to hear some background. i have been there, working for ___ which contained more divisions and committees than i would care to remember. also other similarities, as web had to co-exist with print designs also, with each different, for each division. it's a very difficult task and respect due for putting so much effort into it to date. bookmarked for a re-visit and the very best of luck, skill and judgement.
On August 26, 2005 3:21 PM Tracy Heyd said:Finally glad to see my alma matter getting some respect in the web world!
I don't have a problem with the nav at all. However, the color scheme is a bit dark and strange. I liked the old tried and true blue with the colorful bits interspersed, such as you can find here:
http://www.simmons.edu/about/site/
My biggest disappointment is that Simmons doesn't have a woman heading things up over there, or at least in charge of the web department.
On August 30, 2005 10:18 PM Ganesh said:It is a great looking site. I like the color scheme.
I can understand why the navigation links are kept where they are.
The reason is simple. It is very simple to navigate once you know where the buttons are and which are for what.
For the regular students who have to access the site, they will get used to it and go there directly and it gives faster accessibility.
On December 12, 2005 9:23 AM Tom Neuwirth said:Great interactive work from BigBad. Not quite sure why Shaun is taking all the credit when several design agencies were involved, including Plainspoke and Argus.
- On April 19, 2006 3:50 PM Shaun Gummere said:
I see in re-reading my comment that Tom is partially right. While web design was, in fact, undertaken in-house for recent, standards-compliant sites like the School of Management, Home Page and CAS Graduate Studies projects, and CSS/XHTML execution was handled in-house for all Simmons sites, this does not appropriately give credit to many others (such as BigBad who worked with us on the earlier undergraduate college and School for Health Studies projects) and who provided excellent work that subsequent websites built upon and extended. In the context of a multi-project undertaking such as the entire Simmons web presence, that includes older sites that do not employ web standards -- and which I didn't fully consider as my mind was focused on those pieces of the overall site that represent excellence in CSS -- I can certainly see how this could be misunderstood and I should have been more careful in how I put things. Simmons maintains a credits page at www.simmons.edu/about/site/credits.shtml in an attempt to capture the range of contributors who share in the success of the overall web presence.
On October 24, 2007 8:58 AM fanboy said:This is a nice site. I'm not sure if it is displaying incorrectly on Firefox, or is the logo supposed to be touching the top. It looks a bit wrong to me. Apart from that though, not bad.
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