I’m not usually one to blow my own trumpet, but I did want to highlight some projects we’ve recently done at Children’s Hospital. Yes, I actually do some real work during the day!
We’ve just launched the public phase of a campaign to raise $300 million (we’re $200M down with $100M to go), and to accompany this we launched redesigns of our Hospital Foundation and Guild web site and the home page of our main web site.
We also launched a new web site – Children’s Story Project – which we are using to collect stories from anyone who has had a relationship with the hospital.
As usual, the work was done in a pretty constrained timescale and we had a strict deadline to meet – a public event to launch our campaign – which put the pressure on!
Fortunately, we still managed to find the time to include usability testing – often one of the first things to get dropped when time gets short.
I’m glad we did as we made some significant changes to the site’s functionality (such as the way that people add their stories) based on this testing.
I’m very happy with the two redesigns as well. They’re elegant but not too ‘fancy’ and keep the focus on the content, which is what our web sites are about.
The Foundation and Guild site uses my Improved Unobtrusive JavaScript Image Rollovers script. It also has delivers some nice Flash video, which is something we’re just getting into on our sites.
We used to deliver video just as WMV files (or using a WVX metafile if I was feeling sophisticated), and delivering video via Flash provides for a much better user experience and is much more cross-browser and platform.
Nice websites. I like the simple structure, but effective output. I’m interested in trying out your rollovers. I’m also looking for unobtrusive tooltips.
Your design philosophy is aligned with my own – keep it simple, but make it elegant – nothing over the top, but design is important.
Cheers,
MD