First off I think I need to qualify a few things. This mockup is to show to the owner to present the idea of how the site could possibly look, not nearly a production design. Because of that, I did several things to it for that presentation only which would not be found on the finished site (for example the wrong breadcrumbs on the home page and the nav being highlighted twice).
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Originally Posted by adras
Two logos on the homepage wtf?
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I changed the logo from the original (the one in the middle with comma and ,inc) because it's ugly. I did not want to completely drop their overly complex logo in the presentation mockup because it might bring complaints so I put it in a place I can change on the finished site after initial reactions from the client.
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Originally Posted by adras
also why not make the latest news more prominent it looks like that content would be important to the user
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The client knows their target market well and news items were not near the top of the list of priorities. Having the news taking up as much space as it is was already pushing it. Do you think that is something potential defense clients would want to read about? Really I'm asking!
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Originally Posted by adras
didn't bother to spend too much time on this.
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You are right, as I said in my description I have not spent a lot of time on this yet. Thats why it is a first draft.
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Originally Posted by adras
Basically it could be done better design wise.
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What would you do? If you don't like it, can you please give me an idea which you would apply to it to improve it? Thats what I'm really looking for!
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Originally Posted by pgo
that menu is overly complex. You don't need all the site's navigation in one spot.
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I tried to have them run the tier 1 navigation across the bottom edge of the header, maybe with popup menus. They did not warm to the idea much and liked the left side nav more, which they think the target audience would understand and be more comfortable with. Any idea how can I reduce the navigation complexity? Some of those links have dozens of subpages.
There are requirements with this site that had to be met which you could not know about, but I hope my choices make more sense now that I have explained them a bit. I could go all "Web 2.0" over the design, which I was thinking of doing as an alternate, but this is not really what they asked for. What do you think? Should I round all the corners, boost the gradients contrast and give it a cool 3d shiny look or stick with the flat boring design they requested? Can I put a nice bright orange or green highlight color in there and not have them flip out? I think this is a dilemma you must all face from time to time, do what I like or do what the client asks for...
I appreciate your suggestions for improvement!