Boblet Learned things and Japan diary, by Oli Studholme

ReUSE:IT competition results

By Oli
At 3:13 PM · Wednesday, 5 November · 2003
To Coding · The ‘Net

Recently there’s been a competition to redesign Jakob Neilsen’s UseIt.com website. Here are the new designs that I liked the best:

Minimal Jakob

Patrick Lauke’s design is bold and colourful, however I don’t think that having almost a third of the content space devoted to Jakob Neilsen’s picture would please him ;-) Despite this the design is powerful while still being minimalist. I think the icons would look a little better in either gray or a faint colour though, they blend into the text too much being small and black.

Airy Useit.com

Marian “ever” Brchan and George “sigy” Sekera have made an excellent minimalist site. The faded link and text colours have really helped make the text less imposing. However, they’ve forgotten the “Interviews” sub-head, and there is no visual difference between the sub-heads on the left and the news sources on the right, which makes the right side look overly strong. I think the sub-heads should be a little more noticeable, perhaps by using the search button’s dark blue.

Only a few graphics…

Jonathan Biggs breaks the content down well — his box scheme keeps separate sections distinct while remaining subtle. The text remains easy to read without overwhelming the viewer. I think he should have made the “use” part of the title red rather than the “it” part though.

The other designs I found either too boxy, unable to effectively handle so much text, or just too much like a corporate homepage. However I found the standard pretty high, and in some ways I’m glad I didn’t enter ;-) Well done to all those who submitted!

I wonder what Mr Neilesn’s response will be to all of this attention? I certainly hope it prompts him into making his site more usable.