Siwatm's+CMNS+Redesign

CMNS Redesign Homework - Siwatm Piyasirisilp
Original: [|Clone] (Best viewed with Firefox)

Redesigned: [|Redesign] (Best viewed with Firefox)

I felt that the original layout for the CMNS website was actually pretty nicely done. It had three distinguishable columns: a navigation bar, a hot topics section, and a resources section. The font colors were easy to read, and stood out from the background without hindering the look of the page. The site background also conforms to official UMD colors; red and black. My only concerns for the site was the small font, the spacing between the links, and the location of the search bar.

First off, I felt that the text for the navigation bar was way too small and clumped together to read. I made sure to bold and enlarge the fonts for the navigation bar as well as the resources section as well as increase the spacing between the links. I also felt that the non uniform background for each section didn't make the information any easier to read, it might have helped give the website a distinct 3 column layout, however i felt that it was unnecessary and even made the text a little bit harder to read so I took it out and made the background a uniform white. Something that really threw me off about the hot topics section was the alternating yellow and white background behind the links. The yellow background highlighted certain articles and gave them preference even though all articles on the hot topics list should have equal weight. Also, being an avid Googler, I believe in having a search bar near the middle of the page which can be easily seen by users. I also think it is important to position the search bar right by the CMNS logo so that users know that they are searching for links within the CMNS website, not the UMD website as a whole. The changes I made might have been subtle, however looking at the redesigned site, it is definitely easier to read and click on links, as well as being much more searchable.