Critiques

nmhu.edu
Very handsome university site! Nice design. "Design only, please.. I could only watch and cringe at the build," says designer Patrick Foster. People in sidebar?
thestranger.com
Sexy youth content site (somewhat explicit) is migrating to NEW DESIGN. Contrast between existing design and new design -- probing rationales for change -- discussing whether this is a good directional change -- could make for interesting on-stage discussion.
learningcommons.org
The whole thing is fair game, but the most challenging design/messaging section is the membership page. If you hit anything requiring authentication, pick "Guest Access" from the school drop-down and enter "DLC Demo" as the mascot. ... Home page, About page, and Membership page need copy advice -- missing basic info, etc. -- Erin
Travel Oregon
"This site for the most part is XHTML 1.1 compliant with a couple of exceptions - data entered by the client in the CMS and a proprietary Microsoft Ajax solution." Beautiful design with lots of great little touches. (Minor bugs.) Copy, overall UX.
www.sitecrafting.com
Handsome site of site design company. Starts off with a bang, en medias res. No candy, no flowers?
http://www.evergreen.edu/housing
The Evergreen State College site "is vast -- and we're working on a redesign process by sections. We're particularly interested your critique of this new section of the site, in the following order of importance:
  1. Branding & Graphic Design
  2. Usability (if that's a category)
  3. Copy & Editorial
www.illumit.com
Home page copy is disorienting and needs help. Also nav/label problems.
mozilla.com
Redesign coming
Select Trucks Dealer Project
"Zen Garden approach" to desiging 22 sites in 30 days. – Pop Art, Inc. (Too many to seriously talk about, but might be interesting to show since it's such a unique project --Jason)
classicfm.com
Implemented, didn't design. How well does it meet W3C AIG?
Tabblo
"a fairly rich webapp whose main purpose is to let folks create stuff."
ofm.wa.gov
Government site. (Sassy color scheme! - JZ Flyout menus galore! - JSM)
Eric: "This site is the result of a massive redesign, focus being meeting modern browser and 508 accessibility standards. It has been live since February and is a work in progress."

dsionline.com
Usability?
Whistler.com
Vacation planner
New internationalist
Social justice site. Trebuchet.
Children's Story Project
Like it says
White Pages
Consumer site. Alternately and perhaps more interestingly, White Pages Corporate Site.
Research Channel
Recently redesigned
providence.org/BridgePedal/
Markup/CSS quality and accessibility (top-level pages). "The first event to use my style-switchable template."
IIDA Northern Pacific
Prof design assoc
Premera Blue Cross
Writing, design, architecture, usability... Any of it, all of it!
www.uwtv.org
Soon to be revamped.
continentalhomehardware.com
The site is for a manufacturer of knobs, pulls, handles for the home. What we were going for:
  1. Clean clean clean!
  2. XHTML Strict (validates clean).
  3. Smart, clean, memorable URLs (using mod_rewrite on top of the PHP code base, rendered with Smarty templating).
  4. Simple easy navigation and functionality.
I will look forward, if so picked, to hearing any thoughts on how the site could be improved. Some resizing problems, and iFrames on content areas in store (resize text a few times and you get a scroll) --Jason
tourismwhistler.com
Werd.
leriot.com
Werd.
dol.wa.gov
Nice design. Multiple language challenges = pdfs.
Carrier
Large site built with 100% web standards. "Zen Garden approach."
Bryant
Large site built with 100% web standards."Zen Garden approach." — Pop Art, Inc.
www.fox28spokane.com
Designer believes front page needs more content but committee for whom he designed it disagrees. Site is for a TV station.
NAPSTER
CSS/XHTML, not design. (That's a shame, because it really needs a design crit. The design makes it seem like they don't even like music. It's so lifeless and devoid on energy. --Jason)
"New homepage (and the Editors' Picks page) which launched a few days ago are the first major pieces I've worked on so if the critique was focused there, that would be wonderful."
England Drive Life
A recently-built client’s site. We built it with an eye towards standards compliance, easy navigation, aesthetics, and search engine readability. (Very little live text, and what little there is, falls apart on resize. Might be good for showing why you can't design the web like print -- Jason)
Finkbuilt
Wordpress blog
Willamette
"I am planning to redesign the above noted university home page shortly. I am going to take the design to fixed-width centered and am looking for overall suggestions about CSS and usability. I am also very interested in small-screen suggestions."
ALTERNATELY: willamette.edu/scene/": "Our tri-annual university magazine is published in print and online, and the online edition received an overhaul with the most recent issue. We are about to publish the next issue — it is due to go to press during the first week of October and go online toward the end of the month — so I’d love to hear feedback on the new direction, its effectiveness, etc."
aaronskelly.com
Communication designer's site
holisticforgeworks.com
Cartoonist for hire (personal site).
Artifex
Web design and development.
Terex Corp
Design? Copy? Nav?
beta.betachurch.org
Usability
65.115.104.39/eduhound/
Redesign with bold color palette (and web standards).
2400 M Apartments
Nicely designed site for nicely designed Washington DC apartments on M Street. But EVERYTHING IS AN IMAGE.
sphcm.washington.edu
Designer's "first real attempt at CSS-P," launched 2003.
Cre8tive Group
I would love to have the messaging and branding/design critiqued! (It's a Flash site, so there's no HTML or CSS to critique…) [Flash sites almost always get ruled out for crits. Even if they are well designed, there just isn't a broad enough range of topics to talk about. -- Jason]
www.azcentral.com/
www.azcentral.com/ent/
Late.

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