After having the new design up for a while, some of the more practical considerations of designing a site have come to the fore. When the new design was originally slated, the content of mothership was reasonably static, with only the forums and blog experiencing frequent change. However, due to encouragement from different quarters we recently decided to add more content to mothership, and this has brought some potential problems with it.
When designing a site, it is generally acknowledged that the content is what drives the design, and not vice-versa. There’s many sites that have had a design slated, then attempted to fit the content into the design, and this shows. Ideally, the content should be completed, then the design (and functionality) applied to the content, to give an integrated final product.Unfortunately, as with the mothership site, this doesn’t always happen.
Our original idea for the site was that we would have the essential information required by potential and current customers, to keep the decision making process simple. We didn’t want to have pages and pages of marketing buzzwords that only serve to bore and confuse readers, and draw away from what we had to offer. However, feedback from several places has highlighted a need for information on the various aspects of what we do, written in a simple, easy to understand manner. We’d like to offer this information, but it alters the content of our site considerably.
One of the biggest issues is navigation – the design has the navigation area at the top, in a fixed size graphical element, which doesn’t lend itself to easy expansion either horizontally, or via drop down menus. This is compounded by increasing font size, which leaves even less room, and causes wrapping, which looks horrible and broken.
The solution isn’t simple, and will probably be the trigger for a redesign which can accommodate growing content. The current site design served the purpose of displaying the current content, but as mentioned before, content should drive site design, and not the other way around.
Comments
13 responses to “Reflecting upon the new mothership design”
So how long before we see mothership v3.0? I like the design as it holds together well, with all information in an easily defined space. I guess I can see how that space could be somewhat constraining, however. What do minds more learned that mine say on this topic?
It will be a while before mothership v3.0 comes to light. In the short term we have several other clients to look after first, and possibly a fourth which will be quite an undertaking, so no time to sit down and build something worthwhile. Of course this also means no time to create the new content as well, so it’s not so bad.
I like the current look – that’s the mothership 8800 Interstellar class, isn’t it?
No – I do like the current look – very together. I can see where you’re coming from about space (excuse the pun!) though. Decisions, decisions…
I’ve taken a good look at the site, and it’s simple to navigate, and easy to read. My favourite would be the home page or the news page – both look great. The ‘webhosting’ page looks a little bare though, and there isn’t much info on what services do actually come with the product. ‘whodesigns’ article is great – easy to read, and explained in simple laymen’s terms.
I recommend you create the new content, then create ‘mothership v3.0’ this time around!
p.s. is there somewhere we can see mothership v1.0?
How often do you change the website for mothership?
Looks pretty cool here. Easy to read not cluttered.
spaceship is cool looks like its coming into land or something
looks sweet here – spaceship looks like its comin into land which is all tied in with the theme so all good
Do you have the old website up anywhere? Be good to see so we can compare the new one against it.
I like the layering of the elements i.e. the space ship behind the main display area – quite effective. The drop shadows on the box, the text, and other elements help this as well but the flat graphics on some of the other pages confuse a bit. Doesn’t quite gell like it should.
All round though, I like.
I like it. It’s light and easy to read and the theme suits the name. What more do you want?
Still no version 3.0 😉
I think it looks great – easy to read and the spaceship adds a 3-D look to it.