Well, after  a longer-than expected ‘break’, I finally can return my mind to the usual business of migration and new content, and other things. I’m glad to say that I’ve completed all but the last part of my super secret project for this other puppeteer: although there is some stuff to do, it’s all about waiting for feedback and then minor modifications.

I would have posted sooner, since I did indeed finish early yesterday; but I got distracted. Yes, again!

See, over the weekend I attended an UNIMA Australia committee meeting, where I reported some thoughts on the website. (Being webmaster and all, it’s pretty appropriate of me to do so) June last year we relaunched it with brand new functionality and design. But after spending a lot of time researching and redeveloping for both Puppets in Melbourne and School of Puppetry - and some advice for Gary Friedman too - I had some ’second’ thoughts on the UNIMA design. It’s an improvement on what was there before, but I think it needs to be much much easier to use.

Part of it was a clumsy attempt at dealing with a lot of menu options. Because the site is for two purposes -  the members and the general public - it becomes large and unweildy quite quickly. You have to have options for the members to do their stuff, like update their profiles and look at scholarship info… but you also have to provide the basics for non-members, like a directory of puppeteers and an online membership form. I didn’t want a long vertical navigation, so I opted for splitting nav. into two: a menu along the top, and an even tinier menu at top right, using mini icons. Not the best of solutions, because no one can figure out what those icons do.

The long and short of it is that I proposed to the committee to implement a long term plan by which we deconstruct what the site is for, how best to present the info within, and create an even better design. It’s also my opportunity to kill Joomla, a program that we use to run the site, because it’s difficult to maintain and impossible for me to hand over to any future webmaster without them being a pro web designer.

Anyway, the last day or so I got particularly inspired with a design idea which I just had to draft while it was in my head. My problem: I can never say no to inspiration when it comes calling.

… Incidentally, the main UNIMA Int website (www.unima.org) is getting a makeover. I recommend you go and visit, and then see if you can find the survey they have going about what needs improving (it’s gone around via email, so I don’t know if it’s online too). PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send feedback. Cause the site is very very very … very … crap. They need all the help they can get.