With "Vessels" in the IA

Sandwiched between several CMS demos and meetings attended by the VIMS contingent, a few of us met in the late afternoon last Wednesday to talk about the VIMS web strategy. Voltaire Miran walked through a detailed report with Dave Malmquist, Barb Parcell, Tanya Ward, Newt Munson and me. The small conference room in Blow Hall was bursting with ideas, questions, and suggestions. Truth be told, I had to leave just after five that day because it was my daughter's 17th birthday. The VIMS crew stayed until 5:30PM or so to wrap up the planning for a new VIMS web site with Voltaire.

We are pleased by the work of the mStoner team. I hope Andrew Bauserman won't mind that I quote from an email he sent after reading the VIMS Web Strategy Report:

WOW !!!
mStoner really seems to me to have done their homework, *listened* to what the folks at VIMS had to say, and have put together a consistent IA across a myriad of diverse components.

WOW !!!
They make it look so simple. It's like F=ma is such a simple formula that a high school student can learn it and use it, but it took thousands of years of human civilization before Newton was kind enough to write it down so simply for us. Thankfully, VIMS was not asked to wait thousands of years for the clarity they received today.

It is ... impressive that even the wire frames, which are simple placeholders for the navigation and such, are not mere cut-and-paste jobs off of each other, the Law wire frame, or the original W&M wire frame - but really represent the "weight" placed on key elements (...e.g., the VIMS newsletter signup on their root page...).

I think we selected the right company for the strategy, IA, and design aspects of re.web!

posted by Susan Evans