Official revision request
Overall we really like the Horizon design, but it does require a few tweaks which we have noted below.
Colors/Hyperlink Style Treatment
Middlebury blue needs to be incorporated into the final color scheme, although blue doesn’t necessarily need to be the background color as in design #2. I’m hoping that we can see 4 different color palettes for the revised design (2 negative, 2 positive) and that we can pick and choose colors from there. I think we are hoping to move towards a color scheme that is more neutral since we are afraid the bold color scheme on the current mockup won’t complement all possible header images.
We would also like to see maybe 2-3 hyperlink style treatments used in the final design (as opposed to the 6 styles present on the current mockups). Although some folks at Middlebury will argue otherwise, we prefer that the link style treatment not involve underlining.
Horizon/Sky Header Images
We’re going to stick with this idea. We would like to include a link somewhere near the top of the page that explains the rationale behind the changing horizon header images. Perhaps in the form of a photo credit? We would like to hear your opinion on this.
Small notes related to the header area:
- German is spelled incorrectly (should be “Deutsch” without the “e”)
- Replace “English” with Korean
Themes
We would like to incorporate the “themes” approach of design #2 into the Horizon design. The 15 “themes” presented in the mockup seem less thematic and more issue-focused. We are hoping to trim them down to 5 or so themes that would be easier for us to manage since the concept of dynamic content is a bit radical for some. Ex: Sustainability & the Environment, Peace & Security, Development & Social Change, Trade & Business Management, Language Education & Multilingual Communication.
10 Questions Feature
We want to keep the 10 questions feature, but remove it from its prominent placement on the homepage. Keeping it as an interactive section of one of the dropdown menus should be fine.
Tagline
The “Be the Solution” tagline does need to be included on the homepage. The easiest solution to this may be to move the themes section to the middle column (replacing the 10 Questions feature) and using the tagline as the headline for this column.
News/Events
This section should be fine, but we would like the first item to not be visually weighted as it is in the mockups. We would also like to see 5 items listed instead of 3.
Middlebury has expressed some fears that these menus will present some accessibility issues. Can you assure us that there is a plan in place to address these concerns? For example, if the About menu is displayed, and you roll your mouse from the top links to the bottom feature section, how do we ensure the menu won’t flip to show the Admissions or Academics menu? Will these appear on a click or rollover? What happens when the size of the box changes? Will they only exist on the homepage?
If the seal is going to be used in the footer, it needs to be the correct seal. However, the seal does not absolutely have to be included. Is there an aesthetically pleasing way to incorporate flags into the footer without using the seal to do so? This might be a nice way to include flags, which have traditionally been associated with the Institute’s brand, without having to use them in all of the header images.
A few small items related to the footer:
- No “The” before “Monterey Institute of International Studies”
- We don’t need the “About this Site” link; replace this with an “Employment” link
- Remove the “OneMIDD” link from the footer until Middlebury decides what they’d like to name this initiative
