Aarron Walter

After much thought and toil on a new design with some fancy new features, StephenGrote.com version 2 is finally in the wild. The main goals of the project were to professionally present to potential clients, Stephen’s students, and passers by Stephen’s photographic portfolio and the many useful, photography resources from the courses he teaches. Version 2 of this site was a realign as well as a redesign, focusing in on our goals and addressing some user experience issues.

Our statistics from Mint and Google Analytics showed that 93% of visitor were viewing the site at 1024 x 768 or higher, but the layout was designed for 800 x 600. Presenting the content in a wider layout, therefore, was top on our list of goals for the redesign. The previous design also had a large photo in the header of every page to introduce viewers to Stephen’s work as they browsed the site. The problem with this approach is it pushed content closer or below the fold, often interfering with the user experience. Now the heading is kept to the essential information and the portfolio exclusively showcases Stephen’s photos.

We had some loading issues in the news section where many RSS feeds from various news sources are parsed and presented, thus making for a slow page load. The solution I arrived at was to use Ajax to load in each RSS headline box independently so the user can begin reading content as it appears rather than waiting 5-10 seconds for all feeds to load. I’m writing an article about how I built this RSS aggregator to be published on DMXZone.com hopefully some time before Christmas.

The home page was also an important area to restructure. To make it clear to users what photos and resources have just been added to the various sections of the site, the page automatically grabs a selection of the most recent items and displays them prominently. There are many other subtle improvements throughout the site that make it more usable and move it closer to our business and communication goals.

Behind the scenes to all of the site is an extensive, custom built CMS where Stephen can manage all of the site’s content including page and section creation, photo management, WYSIWYG text editing for all pages, RSS feed management, contact message archives, and much more.

It’s a site that I have put a lot of time into, and has given me the opportunity to stretch my technical skills. It’s a great resource if you are or hope to be a photographer.

The Interactive Media Design department of The Art Institute of Atlanta (where I teach) is hosting a panel discussion event this evening consisting of some very bright people in the Web Design industry who will be discussing trends, technology, design, process, business, User Science, and more. If you are in the Atlanta, Georgia area, feel free to stop by this evening at 6PM. Get more information and even ask a question for the panel of experts here.

The panel of experts will include Jason Williams of Moxie Interactive, Kevin O’Conner and Sam McKeveny of User Insight, Ben Friedman of Iconologic, Jen Gordon of Creative H2O, Jason Anderson, Jeremy Brown of BellSouth, and Ryan Manchee of Eye Wonder

The irony of teaching and doing Interactive Design professionally is you have little time to be your own client. Over the past couple of months I have been sneaking time where I can find it to breathe new life into AarronWalter.com. At long last and just 2 days before I leave the country for 3 months, the new site is live.

It’s my goal to keep the topic of conversation on this blog focused on Interactive Design issues and valuable to readers. I will, however, be writing quite a bit this summer about my travels and adventures in Berlin, Germany as I teach three courses there on a quarter abroad program. Keep your eyes on the “Look” and “Locate” buttons above to see photos I am taking and see where I am located.
Some new things you will find here are a resources section with, you guessed it, Interactive Design resources. The links page in resources updates automagically as I make bookmarks in my browser, so look for fresh content daily. I have attempted to give some insight into the design and development process I took on this site. You can follow my thought process from sketchbook to comp. I always enjoy seeing designers like Cameron Moll and Jason Santa-Maria sharing their design process with their readers. There is a lot to be learned from seeing how other designers operate.
Be sure to cruise through the teaching section to see some of the great work my students have created. They are a talented group! I have some new work in my portfolio as well.

So here it is, the new site. I’d appreciate you dropping me an email if your eagle eye catches something I have overlooked.

PS: This blog is syndicated via RSS.