WSA Winner
Thursday June 23rd, 2005
Shaun's site certainly stirred up a lot of discussion during a quiet period on the Standards scene. Whether you love it or hate it, the menu system which is the crux of his new design definitely broke the mold.
It's this combination of innovative interface design, graphical expertise and technical nous that impressed our judges enough to give it an across the board thumbs up.
“If you thought CSS based design was starting to stagnate, look no further than Shaun Inman. Shaun continues to push the boundaries, merging beautiful design sensibilities with an amazing technical aptitude. I genuinely look forward to each new project he announces and expect to see many more of his sites appear here in the future.”
Andy Budd
“Possibly the easiest site of the month selection since WSA began. Not that the other contending sites are anything but excellent, just that Shaun Inman's site is a fine example of pioneering and groundbreaking web design.
His site has got people talking and thinking worldwide and will surely stand as a beacon that moved standards compliant sites up another gear.”
Robert Ford
“I've got to go with Shaun's site simply because of the technical aspects. I do like the design, but it's what he's got going on behind the scenes, with the show/hide menu, etc. that I find really impressive. Spectacular use of Web standard technology.”
D. Keith Robinson
Original review:
I know what you're thinking, Shaun Inman already got an award for his site! What was said then still stands today and the temptation was to simply update the entry.
Giving it a little more thought though, this site needs to be brought up front again. If you didn't already know about Shaun, you might be forgiven for thinking it was a site done with Flash. It is, if you like, a sneaky peek at the future of web standards-based design, and it's looking mighty slick from where I'm stood.
Reviewed by John Oxton
#1
I'm just surprised it took this long for it to get re-entered :
Posted by Craig :: June 23rd, 2005 at 12:56 PM
#2
Yes he deserves to be shown again for his redesign, it's been featured everywere, now all he has to do is post more often.
Posted by Joshua Kendall :: June 23rd, 2005 at 01:09 PM
#3
Don't give him an award until he gives the world a Mint.
Seriously, though, the new design is pushing the limits, and that's a great thing.
Posted by Dave Simon :: June 24th, 2005 at 03:40 PM
#4
Maybe I'm alone here.
I don't like the redesign.
* Navigation costs me, at minimum, two clicks to get anywhere.
* It takes too much thinking and reading to figure out the different between the "recent commentary" and "recent comments" section.
* The "My Designologues" menu looks like a button that should be clicked to open up (especially the arrows on the right-side), which if you do quickly causes you to unintentionally load one of the pages (because of the pop-up on mouse-over).
* The navigation (while very cool) isn't obvious. Don't make me think.
* The "Of Mention" section is also confusing. If you don't know what designologue is, clicking that big huge image takes you to a page with a picture of a little kid drinking pineapple juice... what?
* Lastly, it's also pretty unclear that two of those image links on the right are actually previous posts.
Anyways, before all the flamers hit me, I am being a little nitpicky here. But I am being honest when I say I don't like the new design. I really liked the old look of shauninman.com and the new one is just confusing.
Posted by Jesse J. Anderson :: June 24th, 2005 at 04:26 PM
#5
Jesse Anderson is not alone. When I'm looking for a web site designer I want one who is going to make it easy for my visitors to find things. If this is an award winning site, its gems are lost on me. I lost patience with it in two hovers and felt disinclined to click on anything but the back button. Sorry - don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Web sites are for information dissemination aren't they?
Posted by Alison Tucker :: June 24th, 2005 at 04:45 PM
#6
I also agree with Jesse and Alison. While I think Shaun is a brilliant designer (his stuff has inspired me more than once), I don't like the new design either. Reasons? See Jesse's post. My biggest gripe is the navigation. Yeah, it's cool and it works even with JS disabled, but frankly if my parents (who aren't super web savvy but can get around okay on the Net) can't figure out where you're supposed to click then it's not successful. Granted, my parents aren't exactly Shaun's audience... but I still think the navigation is cumbersome.
Posted by Angie :: June 24th, 2005 at 06:06 PM
#7
I agree with Jesse, Alison and Angie. I think the redesign is a brilliant technical achievement, and I think it's to be celebrated for that - but the design itself is poor.
It looks 'funky', but at the cost of a degraded user experience, as indicated by all the above comments. A website's prime objective is to communicate effectively and to be easily navigable. It is content that matters, and how easy it is to get to the content you want. A websites looks are secondary. Shaun's design forgoes plenty of well established usability principles and it suffers because of that. Most notably offenders in this design are the two step navigation, incredibly small text, and frustrating time trying to decipher what is what and where.
Once again - it's an incredible piece of coding, but it feels like the design got lost inside the 'new possibilities'. It feels like all those Flash websites of old - done differently because it's possible, not because it makes sense.
Posted by Matt Wilcox :: June 24th, 2005 at 06:17 PM
#8
While I can understand where Jesse, Angie, Alison, and Matt are coming from, I can't say that I fully agree with them. And please don't take this as any sort of flaming.
It's true that the dissemination of information is a key goal of websites in general. More importantly though, is the dissemination of information to your target audience.
I'm sure over the years Shaun has gotten to know his audience quite well. It seems to me that his audience consists of web geeks, developers and designers, all of whom are usually on the cutting edge of the newest techniques and technology (or at least wanting to learn them).
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are other people visiting his site as well but the majority rules. Sure, having the navigation menu move on a rollover might be better because it's one less click and could be considered more usable, but is that what his audience needs or wants? Maybe people visiting his site like to click around and figure everything out. Then again, maybe not. Who am I to say, I'm just a lowly developer that's trying to absorb whatever knowledge he can from the big boys.
Posted by Mike S. :: June 24th, 2005 at 09:19 PM
#9
I like the new design, but it is a bit misleading - I didnt even notice the Navigation until the third time I visited...
Posted by eddmun :: June 24th, 2005 at 09:51 PM
#10
Wow, guess I wasn't alone. =)
Mike - I agree that Shaun's audience is definitely of the more tech-savvy type, which is why I pointed out that I was being a little overly nit-picky. But honestly, I'm a pretty tech-savvy person and one of Shaun's audience - most of those points I listed above apply to me..
I saw the "Recent Commentary" section and thought that those were recent comments. Just name it something different - problem solved.
And the My Designologues that looks just like a button - make it work like a button or make it not look like one.
Matt Wilcox says it best:
"It feels like all those Flash websites of old - done differently because it's possible, not because it makes sense."
Posted by Jesse J. Anderson :: June 25th, 2005 at 01:27 AM
#11
Mike S - you are quite right. If Shaun has aimed for a website to interest and intrigue the web-designer community then hats off to him; he's succeeded perfectly. On the other hand, those gripes mentioned above do still apply to me, because as much as I like the technical aspect, the design frustrates me.
Posted by Matt Wilcox :: June 25th, 2005 at 11:17 AM
#12
Nice to see Shaun's listening. The navigation now drops down (and back up) on hover, not on click. :-)
Posted by Matt Wilcox :: June 25th, 2005 at 07:33 PM
#13
Yah, definitely a big improvement on the navigation. It's still a little out of the ordinary which may throw off new visitors but, as Mike S. said, Shaun knows his audience and it shouldn't be a problem for his them. Actually, yah! I really like the navigation now, such a simple change, but it makes a world of difference!
He also change the Recent Commentary to Recent Articles. Nice!
Kudos Shaun, glad to see even the 'big guys' still respond from peon criticisms =)
Posted by Jesse J. Anderson :: June 25th, 2005 at 08:40 PM
#14
er, "respond from" should be "respond to"
Posted by Jesse J. Anderson :: June 25th, 2005 at 08:42 PM
#15
I don't really like the change to the navigation. I like to control as much of my web experience as I can.
If the mouse moves on my desk while I am typing or something hits it and it rolls over the navigation, I will have to mouse over the navigation/search button again whereas before it wouldn't of made a difference.
If I had to re-rate it (in my mind) I would have to take 10 points off of the original score I gave it just for the navigation being changed.
Sorry Shaun I just liked it better the other way. :(
Posted by Joshua Kendall :: June 26th, 2005 at 01:16 AM
#16
I don't know what all the fuss is about. He has a beautiful site, but I don't see anything extraordinary about it. There are more web pages than human beings; apparently, not all were considered.
Posted by praetorian :: June 26th, 2005 at 02:32 PM
#17
This is interesting, a web standards site awards a site that doesn't even validate.
Posted by Zsolt :: June 26th, 2005 at 02:45 PM
#18
"This is interesting, a web standards site awards a site that doesn't even validate."
A couple of unencoded ampersands, that's all. I think we can let that slip don't you? I am sure it could be fixed in a few moments.
"I don't know what all the fuss is about... There are more web pages than human beings; apparently, not all were considered."
Who's making a fuss, apart from you? You'd be amazed how many websites I look at in a day searching for a WSA candidate. You'd be amazed at how few get past the first hurdle.
Posted by John Oxton :: June 26th, 2005 at 03:39 PM
#19
Speaking of hurdles, your site doesn't validate either, Joshua (at least not at the moment).
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//joshuaink.com/
Posted by praetorian :: June 26th, 2005 at 04:03 PM
#20
praetorian, John's site might not validate, but at least it is for a good cause that it doesn't validate.
Posted by Joshua Kendall :: June 26th, 2005 at 05:20 PM
#21
Blah blah blah I liked the old blah blah better than the new one and this button should really be named blah blah. I can't believe people think this kind of "dialogue" is critique—it's not. These things are petty and you'd be better served sending them to Shaun and keeping them off a google archived web page. Skip the nerdery and discuss things that matter.
The new design is a nice step forward in time. It feels lighter visually and does a nice job bringing in some fresh elements.
Posted by "critiquer" of "critiquers" :: June 29th, 2005 at 04:19 PM
#22
"Skip the nerdery and discuss things that matter."
You're on a web standards award site. It's the nerdery that matters. :-p
Posted by Matt Wilcox :: June 30th, 2005 at 07:53 PM
#23
A fantastic redesign - living up to and surpassing the previous one. Great navigation idea, if a little inaccessible.
Posted by Andrew Faulkner :: July 6th, 2005 at 11:20 AM
#24
Some sites are awarded for their simplicity and usability, others are awarded for their strict adherence to standards. Some are awarded for great visual design while others are awarded for their innovation. If every site was awarded based on the same strict set of guidelines, the awards would be very dull indeed.
I totally agree that the nav on Shuan's site is unusual and in some respects, difficult to use. If this was a large commercial site I'd definitely question the wisdom of such a system. However this isn't a large banking site, it's somebody's personal playground. And what better place to push the boundaries and try something new than on your own site.
As you can see from my comments, I voted for this site not because of it's adherence to strict set of best practice guidelines. I voted for this site and a shining example of innovation in the standards world. At a time when many people are criticizing standards based design for being unimaginative, Shaun proves this couldn't be further from the truth. I wish there were more people like Shaun, willing to break the mold,challenge conventional wisdom and push the boundaries of design.
Posted by Andy Budd :: July 9th, 2005 at 12:10 AM
#25
I think it is excellent. I agree with many of you on the issues with it but all in all I believe it is solid, attractive and pushes the boundaries which I believe was the intent.
Posted by Mark E :: July 10th, 2005 at 06:17 PM
#26
Very clean easy to use site
Posted by Philip Smith :: July 14th, 2005 at 12:43 PM
#27
Poor font size.
Poor menu.
Too many clicks.
I don't see anything great.
He needs to follow zeldman to reach anywhere.
I actually think he is quite cocky.
Posted by Kelly :: July 15th, 2005 at 03:41 AM
#28
^^
Someone is a bit jealous, I guess? o_O
Anyways, I think it's a great site. Definately deserved it! :)
Posted by Bilal :: July 27th, 2005 at 07:49 PM
#29
But this just doesn't work in FireFox :-/ It also has a drop-down working in FireFox which doesn't in IE. Only in IE this nice menu works, but not in FireFox.
Posted by JjP :: July 29th, 2005 at 04:03 PM
#30
While agree with many of the above comments the thing that annoyed me the most was the Navigate / Search button at the top that shoots you down to the very bottom of the page where there other Navigate / Search button does nothing. And why is the page so long? The content only reaches maybe halfway down.
Other than those compaints I like the site a great deal. The menu is awesome.
Posted by spyyddir :: August 1st, 2005 at 05:16 AM
#31
IT bothers me that the page is so long and the typeface is so small.
Posted by Fabian De Rango :: August 2nd, 2005 at 12:15 PM
#32
This brings a bit of nostalgia to me, actually. I remember a time when many personal websites used the smallest font size combined with a sans-serif font. It must have been, what, 1998? Arial 10px was common then because it the vast majority of monitors were set at 800x600. Hell, my old Compaq couldn't push 1024x768 even when I tried.
Fast forward to 2005, and I think people are a bit startled by the tiny font as almost everyone has higher screen resolutions, especially in the design field (I can never have enough screen space for Photoshop, sigh). As I see in the previous versions, the font was only one size larger. Small is in, I tell ya!
Final thoughts: I do like the simplicity of the design, but it seems a bit cluttered by the tall page filled with text. Perhaps hiding the comments until one truly wants to view them/submit one would be good. It goes with the spirit of hiding the navigation as well. ;) Then again, I keep accidentally hovering over the nav, popping it up, and have to mouse over something else to close it.
Posted by Rose :: August 11th, 2005 at 03:28 PM
#33
Isn't it amusing that the people who are critising this website don't actually have a decent website themselves before for you offer suggestions to improve this website i suggest you look at ur own, and try bring that to a decent standard.
Posted by mrbrightside :: August 20th, 2005 at 02:40 PM
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