Aaron the Librarian

I hope this space doesn’t become an all ALA all the time blog, but here we go with more ALA stuff

[update1: this is the email I got from ALA which I mildly edited to sound like a more personal request]
ALA is in the process of redesigning ala.org and would like your input on some of the rough preliminary screens that they are referring to as wireframes.

If you had the opportunity to view the wireframes during Annual Conference in Washington, they would especially like your input, as they have made several changes to them based on feedback received from comments during the conference.

While viewing and evaluating the wireframes, ALA asks that you please keep the following in mind:

1. The wireframes you will see are rough early sketches that do not represent the visual design of the site, just an idea of the basic layout.
2. The wireframes provide only limited functionality. Links that are active are indicated by an underline & bright blue color. Things that may someday be links but are not active in this demo are underlined but are “grayed out.”
3. The wireframes contain very little actual content at this point. Many areas of the site simply provide placeholding text to indicate where content would be.

To start viewing the wireframes, click on this link: http://www.userworks.com/ala/ALA%20Wireframes%20v9-postconference.htm

After you have had a chance to explore the wireframes, please take a moment to fill out the short survey. To complete the survey, click on this link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=PESQdPbvg87AzFXlQge4Eg_3d_3d

Your feedback is extremely valuable, and will hopefully help make ala.org a more enjoyable and usable web site.

[Update2: this is where the email ends, my personal comments are below]
For what it’s worth, the wireframes deal only with the look & feel; the URL gobbledygook will shrink as content moves to the new “Collage” CMS and the URL gobbledygook can be further reduced by renaming folders which can be done by the Divisional Web Managers.