Are you fucking kidding? Case can't spend the $50,000 on paying a NYC/Chicago design firm to come up with an actual design (complete with aesthetics, intuitiveness, usability, accessibility, and--how about this--actual design professionalism)? Try looking outside of Cleveland for talent, where, incidentally, all of your most talented alumni go after graduation.

I will argue that not one of the few dolts from the talentless firm hired to make these three concepts could tell you who Edward Tufte is, let alone make a site that is even an iota of a percent comparable with the actual reputation of this University.

Dropdowns do not a navigation make. Animations do not usability entail. And, god damn it, there is a difference between typography and fonts. Changing type faces indiscriminately to match a "fun" quality self-associated with Cleveland looks as stupid as advertisements in the 1950s did.

Is it just me or do you weep for the declining face value of your education because of stupid Marketing Surveys about our Web Site?

Of late, I'd rather Case frivolously spend as little money as possible. An in-house project is generally much cheaper than going with your "NYC/Chicago firm" just because our website needs tweaking.

Also, blanket-insulting people in Cleveland only hurts your argument.

I'm not saying the designs were good (or bad), I'm just saying that for once Case seems to want to keep costs down and I find that incredibly encouraging.

Edward Tufte's awesomely designed website: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte

He's actually known for his work on display of quantitative data, but you are sweet for dropping his name.

Then some people just don't understand where value comes from:
1) In having money, or
2) In spending it wisely

Spending, what is relatively chump change for a University which measures its endowment with a big 'B', on a factor that is everybody's first, last, and recurring image of the face of the University seems to me like a pretty good idea.

As for what stays and leaves Cleveland, yes, sure, there's a good, but tiny, percentage who, for any number of reasons--costs, fear of living outside the mid-west, family, relationships, dead-weight--are still here, and there are even a great number of talentless students who graduate and move to San Francisco only to have zero impact. But the vast majority of those willing to spend their time on making real fruits find themselves with only one option: Goodbye Cleveland.

(Original poster)

I disagree with every point you tried to make with your insulting and negative post. How is your post constructive at all? Why not give specific feedback instead of criticizing the process? And do you have $50k to throw into the kettle?

Anonymous (in post 28688):

Are you fucking kidding? Case can't spend the $50,000 on paying a NYC/Chicago design firm to come up with an actual design (complete with aesthetics, intuitiveness, usability, accessibility, and--how about this--actual design professionalism)? Try looking outside of Cleveland for talent, where, incidentally, all of your most talented alumni go after graduation.
I will argue that not one of the few dolts from the talentless firm hired to make these three concepts could tell you who Edward Tufte is, let alone make a site that is even an iota of a percent comparable with the actual reputation of this University.

Dropdowns do not a navigation make. Animations do not usability entail. And, god damn it, there is a difference between typography and fonts. Changing type faces indiscriminately to match a "fun" quality self-associated with Cleveland looks as stupid as advertisements in the 1950s did.

Is it just me or do you weep for the declining face value of your education because of stupid Marketing Surveys about our Web Site?

I think it's pretty terrific the University is soliciting feedback from the campus. There are many talented developers here that I think could make very informative suggestions.

On another note, if anyone in Marketing and Communications hasn't yet dismissed this thread as yet another anonymous trolling on Forum: Did anyone in your department consider funding a contest for template submissions. Offering up a new Macbook Pro or something of that nature would surely garner some interest. Especially from students who have nothing else to do this summer. Maybe a cash prize would be more suitable for people that would want to work together. I think that would create a number of interesting opportunities. For one, $2000-$3000 is probably pretty cheap to pay for a really quality design, especially for the number of visitors the homepage gets. Even $5000 probably isn't out of the question. Second, we could point to the homepage as an example of the top-quality students that attend Case. I guess one issue is: what happens if all the submissions are crap? You still have to pick one because it's a contest and you have to pick a winner.

I was also wondering if there was any committee formed to talk about what would be important for a new Case homepage. Whose input was sought when making design choices? Also, is there any talk of taking whatever design you choose and making it the official Case template for other Case sites? If this is all published on someone's blog somewhere, then I apologize for being a lazy web-izen, but please point me in the right direction.

Lastly, maybe there was something I didn't pay attention to, but was the $50k number just made up or was there something published that quoted that number as the cost?

Alexander Hutnik:

I guess one issue is: what happens if all the submissions are crap? You still have to pick one because it's a contest and you have to pick a winner.

Like the Binary Walkway or Jolly Scholar?

Alexander Hutnik:

I was also wondering if there was any committee formed to talk about what would be important for a new Case homepage. Whose input was sought when making design choices? Also, is there any talk of taking whatever design you choose and making it the official Case template for other Case sites? If this is all published on someone's blog somewhere, then I apologize for being a lazy web-izen, but please point me in the right direction.

See the forum thread, the webdev blog, the Web site, and Case Dailies 8/21/2007 and 8/30/2007 (there were probably more, I didn't feel like digging that far).

This isn't anything against Alex, more against the general tone the thread has taken. The university community was given many opportunities to give feedback on the process. "No one reads the Case Daily," is not a valid excuse for being uninformed.

Also, if Case had hired an outside design firm, we'd have the same whiny thread of people complaining about ho Case wasted $50k on a Web site redesign.

None of you have obviously ever worked in the design and web industry. And I'm not talking about designing your department's web page or personal site, but actual sites with deliverables and costs.

$50,000 is peanuts for the people-to-doughnuts* ratio that the Case web site (and all of its derivative sites which will use the brand) will give in clear value.

We should be thinking about branding that professionals supply, not what some crackerjack kid who doesn't mind being paid in MacBooks and free pizza can provide for little cost and no talent.

(Original poster)

* For those unfamiliar with this phrase, think $-to-doughnuts.

Robert Kinsey:

This isn't anything against Alex

No offense taken. Thanks for the info Rob!

Robert Kinsey:

Also, if Case had hired an outside design firm, we'd have the same whiny thread of people complaining about ho Case wasted $50k on a Web site redesign.

Of course. With an organization this large, it would be impossible to please everyone.

Anonymous (in post 28718):

None of you have obviously ever worked in the design and web industry. And I'm not talking about designing your department's web page or personal site, but actual sites with deliverables and costs.

I don't think you can really say that with any level of confidence with so many... anonymous... posts.

Anonymous (in post 28718):

We should be thinking about branding that professionals supply, not what some crackerjack kid who doesn't mind being paid in MacBooks and free pizza can provide for little cost and no talent.

Wow, what terrible, disparaging words. It's really disheartening to hear a member of the community have so little faith in what the students here can accomplish. And that's not to say I would limit the competition to students. There are many talented staff members here who could participate in such a project. If you're such a badass, let's see what you come up with. I guess the reason you're posting anonymously is so that no one actually holds you to that challenge in real life. Coward.

Would it be feasible to allow a hybrid approach for the design process? Let the UMC group continue on their current path, but also accept a couple of community-driven design proposals.

If there's demand for it, I could create a forum for the design entries, with each entry getting its own thread for feedback/updates. There could be a semi-informal voting process (on the forum) where the winners would be submitted to be shown alongside the UMC proposals in the future surveys.

This would avoid the problems created by allowing only UMC or only student-made proposals (assuming that people other than the OP have a problem with having only UMC proposals).

I have no idea if this would go against some sort of contract that the university has with the UMC department.