nineeleven.co.uk revamp?

[pap]

I work in a web design agency. As a direct consequence, I'm constantly exposed to usability issues and ways to improve the user experience.

One of the fundamental concepts behind usable web-sites is the concept of "Don't Make Me Think", crystallised in the book of the same name. This book makes a lot of common-sense observations about the nature of the web experience.

One of the most telling is the fact that people do not read web pages - they scan them. If they find something of interest to them, they will click further. So more information is good, right? Well, sort of.

The web is not print. If you nip down to your local Waterstones and buy a book, you cannot instantly get another fresh perspective if it is not to your liking. This is not true online. People can, and will, go elsewhere if the site they visit doesn't sate them in fifteen seconds.

I feel that the homepage has too much information for newcomers to effectively process. It is absolutely fine for experienced users of the web, particularly those who visit like-minded sites, but I think we can do better.

Every time a web page loads, the content provider enters into a psychological contract with the end user. The job of a content provider is to provide information, and if the paths to such information are not clearly signposted, people are likely to go elsewhere.

The information we have at our disposal is highly visual, and could provide us with the opportunity to present all of our existing information in a much better way. I would be happy to help in any such re-organisation.

[Jim]

We don't have plans for a revamp at the moment.

Points noted but there are many reasons for the current layout/design and information presentation - some members need complexity, some don't and so far we have found a balance point in relation to:

1. Overall complexity
2. Reasonable design with wrt. to dev. cost (effort) and support
3. Management cost (effort) wrt. information presentation e.g. phpBB/FetchAll paradigm - front page/forums and relationship between the two i.e. storage and presentation
4. Member requirements for calendar, attachments, moderation etc.
5. Complexity of member/group permissions

There's always room for improvement but at the moment that should not mean a large increase in management and/or effort to maintain what is currently a very functional and manageable site. The reason for this is that our resources are somewhat limited and any major development will incur a great deal of resources to make changes that don't seem to be required.

Also, "revamp" is a very broad term so what exactly are you suggesting?