It's only natural to turn the critical eye towards our own site. It may not be perfect but we think it hits the mark for our audience and goals. Often during the development process our former design roots would surface and say, "it needs more photography!" But we're not a design firm; our purpose is organization and structure.
Obviously it is easier to design a clean interface without a large amount of content, and that was our goal. But don't be fooled, what you see is only the publicly available content.
Prior to launch we had a simple splash page with our logo and positioning statement, a rather clean look. The 'design devil' on our left shoulder said, "keep the splash page, it works with the clean look and feel." The 'usability angel' on our right shoulder said, "splash pages are a waste of a click, why force the user to download another page." Ultimately you can see who won. No Flash, thank goodness, and no unnecessary graphics, nothing worse than those Photodisc stock images that say, "we're in the technology business." There is a standard tab bar navigation structure, maybe a bit cliche, but it's simple and effective.
Taking into account our scope of services, the site achieves our goals; clear concise delivery of content, with a simple navigation structure. Download times should be quick with a very light graphical load. Effective use of CSS and Dreamweaver based templates creating .htm files also increases efficiency.
What's bad? Perhaps a bit too copy heavy, and will an audience who is not savvy understand what we do? This is the major battle that many web sites face, writing in a tone that will appeal to a variety of audiences. The other major issue is font size, perhaps a bit small, we're going to get some feedback, and perhaps offer a dynamic option similar to wired magazine.
There is a clear plan for the growth of the content on the site, this will allow us to avoid the sprawl that happens on many web sites, the expanding navigation bars that soon become too crowded.
Then there is the ever popular question, what does 'hyku' mean? Well, nothing, it's just a name. Just a short simple name that is easy to remember. Of course as people begin to question this answer, the imagination starts to create alternative stories. One idea that fits with our mission is: helping know your users. Sounds plausible doesn't it?
