I’ll say it: NYPL Labs (the site) is boring. I’ve always thought of this first iteration/design of the site as a 0.5 version, but it’s high time it moved to 1.0. Additionally, I thought Labs 1.0 would consist solely of a redesign, a better layout of what’s already on the site. But I’ve heard from some of my fellow NYPL digitons (I just made that up!) a desire for some new content/functionality (btw, who can tell me a shorter way to say “functionality?”). Here’s what I’ve got in mind.
New Logo
There really is no logo for NYPL Labs. There isn’t even a proper treatment for the name of the site. This is due for the most part to unfortunate timing: when we first launched Labs, our Graphics department, who are in charge of the visual identity and branding for the Library as a whole, was just beginning a major redesign of said visual identity. As you can imagine, that takes a lot longer than putting up a relatively small, focussed blog, and they were understandably too involved with that process to give any attention to our project. So we launched with just that little illustration, and no text treatment. This was, in hindsight, not a great decision in terms of visual presentation. Oh well. These days, the visual identity redesign is moving right along, and I will most certainly be working with Graphics on developing a proper header for Labs.
Updated, Organized Projects Pages
First of all, that little plus-sign directory tree thing on the right side of the site isn’t working as a navigation system. It’s a neat piece of business in theory, but in practice on Labs, it effectively hides our projects from our viewers. Kind of antithetical to our mission.
Also, the content of those pages is rather outdated. This is probably because it’s a lot easier to create a post than to edit a static page, which leads me to rethink how those Project pages are put together and maintained in the first place.
“Most Recent Post”
You know what I’d like to try? I’d like to tweak the layout so that the most recent post gets put sort of up top, slightly separated from the older posts. I’ve seen some other blogs do that, and I like that extra bit of visual emphasis.
Horizontal Site Navigation
The Project pages, along with “About Us,” “Suggestion Box,” etc., are moving to a horizontal configuration near the top of the site, I think. Unless I come up with a better way to use our current “60/40″ configuration.
List of Coming Changes
I like the common blog convention to have a list of changes on one side, with the completed items crossed out. Simple but effective.
More Widgets
Flickr, a feed/bookwall of our Labs library books (we have a little shelf of programming and UX books), tag cloud, better del.icio.us integration…
What did I leave out? Is there anything else you think would be an exciting, shiny, or just plain necessary addition to Labs?