Meyer Website Review

Reviewed by Klaus Ganser.

Overview -

All in all, a great new interface for the Meyer Library website with a functional, deliberate design.

Concept -

I took a look at the current Meyer Library Website in reviewing yours, and I can see the need for a more useful and expanded online portal (how old are those computers!?).  I think that your ideas for making the Tech Desk site geared more towards users with limited experience and in need of technical assistance are in the right place, and I think that this new design would be a big hit if it were adopted.

One suggestion I would make (and this might just as well fall under "design"), considering that your front page links to many existing web pages on the Stanford Libraries site which you won't be redesigning, is that you incorporate some stylistic flourish from the old site on yours, making it less jarring a transition to follow these links.

Design -

You have a very neat and innovative site design for the Library, and I think the layout is user-friendly and well thought out.  One concern I have with your current design is the use of graphics in the place of text.  I think the load time would be dramatically improved and the code much neater and easier to alter (especially if you plan to run scripts to generate the page behind the scenes) if you replaced text graphics with text.  The issue of load time is especially noticeable to me now (more than it should be) as I have a bad wireless connection here.  Wherever you wouldn't see a difference in quality, I would also suggest you consider compressing your PNG images to GIF.  This may require more hands-on work on your part if you are publishing this with a program that does most of the menial work for you; still, consider it.