Redesign for W3C

[David]

Some of you may have noticed that the W3C (http://www.w3.org/) recently launched their redesigned site. It is very different and at first glance is a major improvement. Any one have any views? You can compare it with the old design by looking at the W3C UK (http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/) site, which hasn't yet had the redesign applied.

[Stewart]

It certainly looks like a massive improvement, a professionally designed website whereas before it seemed like a cobbled together blog. The navigation on the old site seemed very poor and I notice that this is a key improvement on the new site. If a user had grown up with the old site then perhaps the navigation would not have been such a problem but as a new user I found it quite unfathomable. I would suppose that they have spent time understanding their user base, created an information architecture in line with their users requirements and created a navigational structure that allows this information to be easily accessed, a quick look at the categories were of interest to me.

It also seems that they really do value participation and involvement, which is reflected in the high prominence that they give this area via the top tabbed navigation - its no longer hidden somewhere down in the page.

The general layout is more pleasing to the eye and clearly structured and they seemed to have adopted a more standard approach to the positioning of key items i.e. navigation top & left, enlarged footer, google powered search. Their colour choice is safe and business like with a cool blue and typographically again a huge improvement with increased standardisation of fonts and text layout.

The validators also are now clearly visible on the home page, previously I couldn't see them on the home page - they may have been there but were invisible to me.

Overall this certainly reflects a more professional organisation with a more professional outlook - I think its a really great improvement and well worth spending some more time surfing.

[Kris M]

Hey guys, I noticed the W3C site a while ago... BUT weirdly enough it's not consistent all the way through. They still have lots of elements which run on the old design... which we all know was bloody terrible.

[kae101]

Its nice to see that, although although standards are of course imporant, you will lose your audience if you don't also consider the look.

What's the point in promoting best practice for CSS if you aren't going to use it!??

It always helps when you are willing to practice what you preach so thank goodness W3C realised this in the end!

KA