Dan Robinson
EF5
First of all, I want to say that I appreciate all of the data sites we have available today, and all of the hard work that goes into building them and keeping them running. However, there seems to be a negative trend in the weather/earth science data world of adopting more complex 'flashier' interfaces for realtime data. While these interfaces look impressive, they are often, to put it bluntly, harder to use and very annoying. For example, often these new interfaces make it impossible to bookmark specific links for quick reference, or data that used to be accessible in one or two clicks now requires double, triple or more clicks.
One example of this is the USGS Earthquake site. Previously, you could visit their home page and view a static image showing recent earthquakes in the CONUS. It used to be a one-click bookmark, you got what you wanted to see in 5 seconds. Now, they've implemented a high-tech, fancy map that requires several clicks and reloads to zoom into to view the continental US, then setting the filter options on the map to view the same information as before, reloading the map each time you change the parameters to what you used to see before.
I've worked in web design for 14 years, and one of the first - and probably most important - things I learned is that the end user does not care about how a page looks - they just want the information. I learned quickly not to waste time building cutting-edge, artsy, complex designs - because 99% of the time, the client would reject it! Clients simply want something clean and professional looking that gets their information to the end user as easily and painlessly as possible. That means building sites that make your clients and their end users happy, instead of doing something to win design awards.
For this reason, I never implemented Flash in my workflow (beyond simple slideshows) because it was getting in the way of the goals of the sites I built.
I hope that I can persuade someone in charge of NOAA, NWS, model, radar and other realtime data site owners to be wary of jumping on the bandwagon to have the 'coolest' looking site with the latest cutting-edge interfaces. Keep things as simple as possible, with as few non-html/CSS elements as possible, and design the site so that visitors have to go through the absolute minimum number of clicks to get what they need. Also consider the implications of the site's accessability to the most common mobile devices.
Also, if pages are moved, consider using the 301 redirect function in htaccess, a very simple measure to help your users get to the information they need. This is particularly true if you've had URLs in use for many years that nearly everyone has bookmarked, not to mention that search engines have also indexed.
One example of this is the USGS Earthquake site. Previously, you could visit their home page and view a static image showing recent earthquakes in the CONUS. It used to be a one-click bookmark, you got what you wanted to see in 5 seconds. Now, they've implemented a high-tech, fancy map that requires several clicks and reloads to zoom into to view the continental US, then setting the filter options on the map to view the same information as before, reloading the map each time you change the parameters to what you used to see before.
I've worked in web design for 14 years, and one of the first - and probably most important - things I learned is that the end user does not care about how a page looks - they just want the information. I learned quickly not to waste time building cutting-edge, artsy, complex designs - because 99% of the time, the client would reject it! Clients simply want something clean and professional looking that gets their information to the end user as easily and painlessly as possible. That means building sites that make your clients and their end users happy, instead of doing something to win design awards.
For this reason, I never implemented Flash in my workflow (beyond simple slideshows) because it was getting in the way of the goals of the sites I built.
I hope that I can persuade someone in charge of NOAA, NWS, model, radar and other realtime data site owners to be wary of jumping on the bandwagon to have the 'coolest' looking site with the latest cutting-edge interfaces. Keep things as simple as possible, with as few non-html/CSS elements as possible, and design the site so that visitors have to go through the absolute minimum number of clicks to get what they need. Also consider the implications of the site's accessability to the most common mobile devices.
Also, if pages are moved, consider using the 301 redirect function in htaccess, a very simple measure to help your users get to the information they need. This is particularly true if you've had URLs in use for many years that nearly everyone has bookmarked, not to mention that search engines have also indexed.
Last edited by a moderator:
