Mar
30
The Unfulfilled Promise of CSS at Universities
March 30, 2009 | 2 Comments
I made a suggestion at a meeting the other day that was met with “That’s impossible!” That’s when I know I’m on to something good.
CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) has the ability to separate presentation from content. At a University, with the multiplicity of content providers (PR folks, faculty, administrators), and the heterogeneity of content and Web [...]
Jan
28
The Human CMS
January 28, 2009 | 1 Comment
Anyone who’s been involved in technology rollouts and training knows that there are not enough hours in the day to address every issue that will come up when the person finally sits alone at their computer using the system for real. As a result, you kind of take a chance and focus on the most [...]
Dec
9
When is Simplicity Simplistic?
December 9, 2008 | 1 Comment
In the early 1970s, Massigmo Vignelli re-designed the NYC Subway maps, making them beautiful abstractions of streamlined simplicity. The idea was based on a notion that the existing maps were too complicated to read, and that riders wanted simplicity.
Unfortunately, the Vignelli maps were pretty quickly scrapped because they were so divorced from user reality (the [...]
Dec
4
The Visible University
December 4, 2008 | 4 Comments
Every time a University Web site is re-tooled, there is this tug of war between those who see it as a marketing tool, and those who see it as a part of their working environment. A couple of years ago, when implementing the portal, we debated whether internal policies and forms should be taken off [...]
Dec
3
Day on the Death Star
December 3, 2008 | 2 Comments
We spent the day with a consultant specializing in MS Sharepoint. Yes, after a meeting about open source social networking tools, I climbed out of Luke Skywalkers X-Wing fighter into the heart of the Death Star.
My tongue is firmly in my cheek. The longer I do this kind of stuff, the more I realize that [...]