meJoe.com

Company boasts up to 60% increased admissions through it's software and consulting services.

LiquidMatrix, the company behind The University of Dayton Admission Site, helped Dayton increase it's admissions %60 from 1997 according to The Chronicle's Article, Colleges Find More Applicants Through Personalized Web Recruiting.

So what is the secret? Chris Muñoz, VP for Enrollment Management, claims that pushing students to their application site along with avoiding too much junk on the page has been the key. A brief glance at the site can attest to the cleaness of design and acknowledgement of it's business goals (increase applications). This combined with the personalization features—though I'd like to know how many students give out their personal information—could be key.

What about admittance rates?

It is nice to have an increased applicant pool, but the real number to be wary of is the number of students that actually decide to attend. The site lacks any content. There are few pictures of the university, the virtual tour requires the download of a proprietary plug-in, and no other engaging content is readily available.

I often encounter the argument for minimized content (junk?) on education Web pages–both for aesthetic and user experience reasons. However, a brief review of sites that are frequented by our target market (High school seniors) give a “busy” aesthetic-the pages are brimming with content. Try MTV.com. “Busy” is a positive aesthetic characteristic on a university home page. Target users are accostomed to it. Besides, who wants to visit a Web page where there is nothing going on?

I sure wouldn't send my child to a university where there is nothing to do.

It can be difficult to express ideas about a topic as abstract as Information Architecture. How do you confront this bottle necker with colleagues?

IA is such a subjective and dynamic topic that arguing a position can almost be futile. That seems to be the most important thing to keep in mind (agreeing that there is nothing to agree on). Much like having a rule that states there are no rules.

But seriously, as with anything, communication is important. The best way to approach IA is through the use of various modes of communication—marker boards, paper, extensive vocabulary—the list is endless. Use them all to the fullest. Do not be afraid to erase, move things around, draw thumbnail Web pages, and hold nothing sacred. Don't be afraid to lose things either—I find that if you managed to construct something once you can usually go back and do it again. Of course back up your work too. Use powerful tools too, like Microsoft Visio.

Keep things friendly first and foremost.

Incredibly fluid Flash animation mixed with provocative icons of nostalgia remixed.

A good Japanese friend of mine could characterize any person, place, or thing into a cute little figurine. He could make scarry things look cute and scarry (contradiction not included). This ability apears to be reflective of the cultures artistic bent for cute munchable things?

So munch on this:
Tokyoplastic.com (click the saw to start) has done some incredibly fluid Flash work and managed to make ugly scarry things cute. Watch out for the creepy hands.

Web designer Jeffrey Zeldman is hot. Here is a quick collection of some of his recent interviews.

Try these:

• A Conversation With Jeffrey Zeldman - from Meet the Makers.com. Extremely insightful and complete, this interview gives us a humanizing look into the man behind and before the site.
• Jeffrey Zeldman Interview - from Since1968.com. This article dabs into the technical aspects of what Jeffrey Zeldman does.

His new book, Designing With Web Standards was recently released amoungst much buzz. I know I will highly recommend it too (as soon as I can get my hands on it).

Related Zeldman sites and work:

• Zeldman.com - His well known personal site.
• A List Apart - Online magazine.
• Happy Cog - Design Agency.

… and all I did was change the style sheet!

This one is called retro orange. I will add the style sheet switcher shortly so that you can move around amoungst the different designs. Let me know how it stands up against the old one.

I just added the style sheet switcher, which lets you use this site in different designs. It can be found at the bottom of all pages.

Some artfully retouched images of the historic districts of Havana Cuba.

AbandonedPlaces.com, a site that is devoted to photographing forgotten or deprecated human-made places, has done a great little piece about the neglected Havana Vieja. Did I mention that I was going to visit Cuba this December? Details to come.

The sheet music to the Super Mario Brothers theme song, composed by Koji Kondo.

After a bit of searching, I came across these Mario Brothers transciptions of our favorite songs.

• Castle and Main Themes
• Star
• Underworld Theme
• Underwater Theme
• Game Over

I am still looking for the following:

• Finishes a level
• dies

My nerdy movie will follow shortly.

When I sat down to play this song on the piano at my parent’s house, everyone was drawn by it’s recognizablility. Even my mother, someone who does not even know how to operate a Web browser was excited to hear something so familiar. Who would have thought that Nintendo and it’s cast of characters would be come such an icon of family life?

Do you remember the Super Mario Bros. songs? This kid knows how to play them all on the piano!

Try this site: http://homepage.mac.com/mrspleen/.Movies/ben_mario_piano.mpeg.

If you are having any problems then try this site:
http://homepage.mac.com/mrspleen/.Movies/ben_mario_piano.mpeg.

The biggest barrier to effective content management has been the learning curve for HTML. A good WYSIWYG editor, especially a custom one gives ultimate control to administrators and ease of use to users.

You've seen'm and used'm. For those that use Web-based email (especially hotmail.com), the ease of typing and editing everything your emails can't be traded for the world.

I'm going to build one.

We have a great need for such a system in our large organization, and by golly if we can't afford it, I'll build it.