30 May 08 Redesign Preview Now Available
A sneak preview of the redesigned ALA website is now available at http://www.ala.org/preview . This is a semi-working version, so expect errors! In the quick links along the bottom of the header, only Divisions and Round Tables have any content in them at the moment. Know also that if you click on the “more” link below one of the three news sections, you will be taken back to the old design because we haven’t moved that content into the staging area yet. Also, shortcuts you might have come to use (such as www.ala.org/lita) do not work on the staging site. That is to say, http://www.ala.org/lita will work, but staging.ala.org/lita will not. Redirects will all work as expected when we move to the live site. As of 4:00 p.m. today, we have not been able to make the highlight images “clickable.” Again, you will be able to click on a highlight image when the site goes live.
Please let us know what you think by writing us a comment, below. We will continue to work on the site over the next few weeks, so come back often. We expect to have the site much more “fleshed out” by Annual Conference at the end of June.
Reader's Comments
The new site is coming together, great work! First I just wanted to say that I really like the idea of standardization and templates for the new IA and UI. Wherever these can be implemented, I’m on board.
Right to it then. This may be something you noticed or are working on, but if you click the left or right arrows on the feature at the top of the homepage body, the image always scrolls to the left.
As of 4pm on 6/3/08, When I visit the various Round Tables, the left nav changes. I was under the impression the navigation would be consistent throughout the site. Is the left nav under our control? Perhaps RTs have different privileges, if so perhaps we can create a way to indicate/differentiate those with unique left navigation menus.
I bring it up because I’m unclear how preserving the departmentalized sites corresponds with the decentralized, content driven IA I thought we were driving for. It seems to me then that information will still live on specific group sites. Maybe the way visitors find and access that information will be vastly improved but it makes me unclear how things are going to interact. If we do maintain independent mini-sites within the primary website, there needs to be a “home” link and icon on the top nav so we can easily return to access the original left menu.
Thanks again for all the hard work.
Howdy folks,
I like the direct drop downs to the Divisions, Offices, T/Rs, etc. But the last two or three options are “lower” than the bottom of my screen (in IE6 or FF2) on my laptop (1288×748 resolution)- I finally figured out I can hit PgDn in IE or either PgDn or the Down Arrow in FF to slide lower on the page while still seeing the drop down lists.
The two drop down lists which cut off are Offices (at PIO), and Round Tables (at MAGERT)
Hopefully this is an easy design fix…
Looking good otherwise & thanks!
Aaron,
Thanks for the comments.
In the drop-downs, we have decided that all unit names will be spelled out, usually in full, and the acronym provided in order to help make information more findable for all, not just the ALA aficionados who know those acronyms!
(There are a few names that just do not fit the field … and those include abbreviations.)
In some cases the long names have wrapped, which makes the drop down longer than it needs to be. For that, we are investigating making the drop down box wider–and shorter.
For the Round Tables, though, there is a limit to what we can do. There are 17, and all need to be listed.
Karen Muller
ALA Librarian &
Convener, Web Editorial Board
I am hoping the myALA section of the site will be much more useful. At least letting people log in and see which sections/divisions/round tables/groups etc. they are members of in a really easy and intuitive fashion (which it is NOT right now).