Website Redesign for St. Charles MO Library District

Homepage: 1.) Lose the drop down menu for search.
Such a menu only hinders the user experience and complicates the programming of the search. If you want to allow the user to refine the search, provide refinements selection after the original search has been made. Steve Kruug covered this topic in his book "Don't Make me Think".

I would recommend just expanding the search bar to fill the area gained from removing the category selector.

2.) Make a clear call to action It seems the goal of the homepage is to get people to sign up for the summer reading program, however the link "Find out more!" is the same color as the text and barely noticeable.

3.) Change FEATURE to FEATURES The blue banner should say features as there are more than one.

4.) Government Documents should ling up with "Whats New" The government documents section is around 10 pixels above the whats new section. These two should line up.

Branches and Hours I think you've done a great job with this page. The page navigation is easy to understand.

eBooks etc... 1.) You can get rid of most of the text on this page. Chances are people are not going to read it as they just want to get to the ebooks and audio books. I'd recommend just placing two images side by side stating "eBooks" and "Audio Books" with an appropriate graphic. For example a pdf icon for eBooks and headphones for audio. Users will know exactly what to do.

2.) The empty side navigation area looks odd. You could create sections for eBooks and Audio books similar to the navigation structure of the Branches page. Under these sections you could provide basic "how tos". Example: (The below links are not great, but could provide a decent starting point.)

eBooks Downloads Get Adobe Reader Restrictions How it works

For Teens 1.) Change the font of the banner. I like the notebook scribble look you achieved with the side navigation, but it doesn't fit on the banner. It makes the teens site look like its for younger kids and may be discouraging. Update the banner with text more suitable for teens.

2.) Remote the second "for teens" You've done a great job of informing the user what page he/she is on with the large purple FOR TEENS section. You don't need to repeat it again om the body.

3.) Join the make waves logo and the make waves text The logo and the text of the Make waves at your library are not united and look like two different sections. Unify these by giving them the same background color.

All in all the site seems really good so far. Just needs some more work.

Amazingly beautiful, stupendous and fantastic!

Frank this is as good as it could be and I am really enjoying the each page of this website. Book and typo spattering out of the books looks very nice. I am sure user’s landing on the website can easily figure out the objective of website and will fall love with the creative of this website and usability of course.

Use of multicolor make this website more live, however, I think if you try to use a subtle tone of purple, green and blue then I think it will become more rocking.

Once again great work Frank.

Thanks, Haider

Nice work - overall very well done. Just a few thoughts to consider...(see notes)

Overall great work. I'm sure it's worlds better than anything they ever had before. The actual site looks very usable. Nicely written markup and CSS. Kudos.

When I go to my library's website, I want to look up and reserve a book, find out about book clubs and kids' activities, and find the hours. I don't think of a library website as a place to go for info links when they're so available elsewhere, but that could be my naivete about recent trends of library websites... :-)

Seems like the home page would be a nice place to feature new arrivals, popular books, bookclub featured books, top audio books, that type of thing. I guess when I go to a library website I want to get pulled in by actual books! :-)

I like the colors very much. The blue, green, and gray go great together. I'm not crazy about the particular graphic with the moose -- the bright blue seems to clash with the other colors.

I love the tabs for kids and teens, and the prominent links for branches & hours, library catalog, and programs and events. I also really like the book with the letters coming out of it.

I also like the arrows on the selected pages. And the homework help feature for kids is cool.

Looks flipping awesome, definitely engaging, too. Simultaneously kid friendly but not overly so it will drive others away.

I think it looks great. The elements are clear and the areas each have a distinct identity. I imagine your goal is to be understood by a very large range of users with a range of education and sophistication. I don't think this would be the place to be innovative. The one clear recommendation I have is about the menus. The top items in white may be hard to read and why are they in a different are from the other items against the green? I don't really need to know the answer but it might help your users figure out where they want to go.

About not enough content on the front page, but after looking at it a library has much information to disseminate and I am not sure that can be done by putting content on the start page. I find the page engages me with the wqealth of things that you can go to do.

But most of all it shows whats new, what brings people to the library website. It creates a certain level of excitement for younger people which is highly desirable.

Good colors, good graphics and new pertinent information. Good job

Hi,

Site is great however I will interchange/swap the position of search boxes i.e. textfield should come before drop down.

Why? What ever i type to search will be searched in 'this site','the web',etc other than the other way around (as currently is). I'd also change the submit button to Go/Search. Currently icon works but not sure everyone will get this?

thanks and the best.

I counted around more than 5 typefaces in use in your design (Logo, Menu, Feature/What's News - Summer reading etc). Try to use 3 typefaces, at a maximum. Your design will gain instant understanding at a glance.

Likewise, I think you have to center some elements, it will gain harmony and readability.

Regards, Chris

website looks very nice . As you took nice concept was inside pages having flipping effect?

The look goes in a good direction. I love the keyvisual on the top left, and the colors, but the book doesnt "sit" properlin on the green bar.

• The Kids tab looks better than the Teens Tab by typography and by color

• The main navigation menu doesnt look developed, and doesnt invite to click. It looks like another line of text. Try different font styles/sizes/colors/icons, or get inspired here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/26/navigation-menus-trends-and-examples/

• you chose to place the headlines on a big orange arrow. The problem is that the arrow directs into "printer-friendly version". it doesnt make much sense.

• I wouldnt choose capitals for the subnavigation, because it is not readable for a big amount of text.

  • you chose blue for subheadlines, which is confusing. The user grasps it as link and not as a headline.

  • the lines spacing is too small. if you enlarge it it will be more readable and look more professional.

At the first instance, I felt that that the website doesn’t really capture its targeted audience. Even though the age group for the site has been described as ‘all’, the site doesn’t seem to target the elderly and visually impaired.

The library’s aim to revamp the website might be to get more outreach. So, it is very important to capture and sell, ‘what you can do while sitting at home’ at the homepage. The original, motto of the site needs to captured as well – ‘how can people contribute?’, ‘Does the library have reading groups as well’ (who knows!) All the ‘community’ features need to have strong element here. In this regard, giving good real estate to key elements like – reading programs seems appropriate.

The Logo doesn’t resonate with the philosophy of the site. Especially, the little Pause / Play image on the book doesn’t match the ‘theme’ of the site.

The ‘how do i…?’ label isn’t informative. Also, why do you want to show ‘home’ as a breadcrumb option here? Didn’t the user click on ‘how di i…?’

The subtitles, ‘branches & hours’, ‘ebooks and downloadable audio books’ seem to be bigger in proportion to the main header.

Because of the imageries and font used, the ‘For Teens’ section has a very ‘girlish’ feel to it.

The overall color palette is not apt for the library and audience. White on Blue (as the global links) makes it very hard to read. The all capitalization style adds to the agony. Over usage of green, might cause blurriness and of course is an issue with visually impaired audience

I love the colours, the website is very engaging and I find the session "how do i...?" very useful.

However, since this is a library site, I am wondering if a library catalog search on first page isn´t more useful then a "basic search".

Nice redesign thought.

There are too many square blocks (the tan ones). they don't seem to be well aligned. something is off here and it makes the square blocks look slightly out of place.

the shadows are really harsh , the box is not aligned nicely too much to the left , the right side of the box is not touching ( so unrealistic ) else but that is really good , may be u should try to make another image for the make a splash read , the pale blue background is not so cool :)

good luck

Maybe it's personal preference, but for navigation purposes, there is a bit too much "back" button required. Library catalogue, registering for events, etc., all take you to a separate page which is disconnected from the redesign.

Considering that it doesn't take up that much space on the page, it's somewhat unnecessary. AT the very least, open in a separate window or a popup.

I think the overall design is nice. But having it left justified is throwing me off. good use of color, allthough I feel the book is really over powering the balance of the design.

Totally nitpicky... as everyone else has fairly thoroughly covered everything else.

The gif your using for the "library district" logo is not matching the blue background, leaving a distinct visual line. Again, nitpicky, but, little things like that make the difference.

:)

Overall really nice.

Sorry... just viewed source... Table's? sorry. no bueno for that content..(actually cut off in FireFox on mac)

Is there a particular reason for no meta data? (if this is JUST design then sorry... )

Nice and very well done design.

Original and creative idea. Very good written markup and CSS.