This is a rebuild of a website I originally designed in 1999. "Head for Home" was considered an artistic and UI success for its time. Presenting it to a current audience, however, exposes its technical shortcomings (HTML 3, font tags, lots of embedded tables, no CSS). Sometimes, kicking it "old school" isn't the best option.
Global Improvements
- Retain the good elements from the original site
- Visual design to be enabled for globally modification "on the fly", without harming content or touching individual pages one at a time
- Format the HTML files for easy content modfication (just in case the client wants to revive this campaign)
- Introduce the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards for the visually- or motor-impaired, as well as users of PDAs, text browsers or web-enabled telephone
- Since this isn't a paying project, Total Development Time must be no more that 40 hours
Technical Improvements
- Modernized coding and usability by writing in XHTML
- Centralized visual elements (fonts, colors, images, page layout, positioning) in CSS
- Tagged content in ID and CLASS selectors
- Rebuilt all image rollovers in CSS
Layout Improvements
- Rendered the main navigation column as line-item tags, creating more logical organization
- Increased width of content area to 600 pixels
- Redesigned content area of Room pages. Copy is now to the right of the feature illustration -- instead of the bottom. This keeps important content near the top of the page.
Extra Improvements
- Reconnected with old client for archived website
- Created new illustrations for index page
Status: Finished, approved and posted. Oh yeah, loved by all.