Eastgate Software has released a new version of Tinderbox. This is the most valuable tool for information architects: an outliner that can translate its contents into a variety of visual formats, including the incredibly useful map view.
I haven’t played with TB2.0 enough yet, so I can’t rave about it too much—it does seem much faster than the previous version, though. Now if they only get around to releasing a Windows version, as promised in the site…
The Museum of Biodiversity will be the first museum devoted exclusively to presenting the diversity and complexity of life on Earth. The building is being designed by Frank Gehry, one of the world’s most famous architects, and the exhibits are being created by Bruce Mau. I’m working on the website.
The site’s splash screen gives a first glimp of the spectacular Gehry design. By cropping a photograph of one of the building’s models, we created an abstract, striking image that makes the visitor curious.
Site splash screen; select your language (80k)
Visitors are immediately presented with a very clearly laid out main screen. In keeping with the spirit of the Gehry building, the main site sections are color coded:
Main site screen (200k)
The design for the site attempts to convey the beauty and complexity of nature by objectifying natural elements and presenting them in an abstract setting.
“About Biodiversity” (164k)
“About Panama” (136k)
“Contact Us” (96k)
The building and exhibits are presented, along with short biographies of their creators:
“The Building” (156k)
“The Exhibits” (156k)
Navigation on third-level pages is more detailed, complex, and specific to each section. In the Exhibits section, for example, users can navigate via a plan of the building that shows the layout of the exhibits in the design:
“Panamarama” (188k)
The news is out: AOL is officially killing off its Netscape division with a mass layoff and the kind of rebranding that reminds one of the death of a controversial pharaoh. A new organization, the Mozilla Foundation will be taking over development of the Mozilla browsers.
What does AOL plan to do with the Netscape name? If they are just killing it off, they should consider donating the brand to the open source community. Netscape is obviously a much better brand than Mozilla, and rebranding everything as Netscape could help the further growth of this excellent browser.
If the Netscape brand is to disappear altogether, we will have reached a true milestone in the history of the web. Internet historians will probably be debating for decades the reasons for Netscape’s fall.
I still remember firing up Netscape 1.0 and getting goose bumps. For those of us that saw the web for the first time on a Netscape browser, this application will always have a special place in our hearts.
Great introduction to the use of personas in web design. [ via IA/ ] How come I hadn’t seen guuui before?
Jesse James Garrett: “The best teams I’ve encountered have one important thing in common: their team structure and processes cover a full range of distinct competencies necessary for success.”
A very useful conceptual model for anyone in charge of organizing web teams.
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