Ouvaton web site renewed

Oh am I happy about this!! The French web hosting co-op Ouvaton has a new web site, based on a layout Paul and I had made a few months ago. I’m very glad it finally made it onto the web, along with the new platform (for which I’ve worked as well, but less decisively I must say).

The new layout takes up the general design we’d made, but has left out a couple of elements — it’s not perfectly stable visually yet, but it’s a damn sight better than the previous site.

The new logo breaks away from a general layout (4 squares and a green-yellow-blue-red color scheme) shared by Microsoft Office and Lapeyre, among many others. Some have criticized it as meaningless, and I know it might seem a bit confused or buzzing — I personally like it very much. While the expression “conveying the values of the organization” is better left to the press releases of more expensive creativity boutiques, I do feel that the rich legacy of Ouvaton is respected while at the same time bringing in a clean, elegant and appealing look.

The site follows a number of rules that I consider crucial on the web:

say it like it is

particularly important for a non-profit organization, avoid marketing speech and focus on fairly describing the products and services on offer, in clear, simple words: it’s good for the visitor and for search engines

offer content on the home page

the top page should not be a collection of links, but should offer a synthetic view of what’s on offer, essentially a one-page version of the entire site — don’t waste people’s time by requiring them to click to get to actual content

serve all your constituencies

as a co-operative web hosting company, Ouvaton can identify several key groups of users: the general public, end users of services hosted on the platform, clients/co-owners of the company, more or less motivated by technology, more or less motivated by the politics; each of these groups has its own use for the site, and they should all be served appropriately

strong branding

apply the company’s branding to all visual elements, ensuring that at a glance, visitors can identify the site and connect it mentally to the brand and what it tries to be

clear navigation

navigation is one way for web sites to make sense, to articulate different pieces of content and construct overall meaning — it must be clear on each page, allowing the visitor to build a mental model of the information offered by the site, no matter where the visitor arrived on the site

standards compliance

follow applicable web standards for (in no particular order) markup lightness and the highest content-to-code ratio, better content and layout maintainability, optimal accessibility, forward compatibility with future browser versions, lateral compatibility across browsers (although that was a bitch with Paul’s cool page layout), and the best possible impact on search engines

Congratulations to the implementers (who have plugged in my HTML into the SPIP content management engine) and have done a great job of it, and good luck for the future!!