they vary in their emphasis on the more personal aspects of their life: Peter and Jef seem willing to marry the two, while Jesse and Jakob keep them neatly separate. The both have a ton of content, and pay the minimum effort to design (obviously some are more skilled than others, but I don't dare name names for fear of scoldings). They also often don't reflect what they preach: both Peter's site and Jakob's are notoriously hard to use when one is trying to locate a resource the offered in the past.
and of course this site is an example of the same: Eleganthack is decidedly a personal-professional site. I run it alone, it reveals my design and editorial failings, and it doesn't always practice what I preach (or what you might assume I'd preach). Instead it's a place where -- whenever I can steal some minute out of my day -- I shove my baby thoughts into the world to fly.
I guess my question is: what are the rules for evaluators when looking at these hybrids? Do we demand they practice what they preach, or do we simply thanks them for taking the time to share their knowledge. I lean toward the latter, but if your site is out there to promote your professional skills, shouldn't it also be an example of yoru excellence? The one chance to not have your craft watered down by compromises with marketing, technology, etc., typically foisted upon one in a commercial project?
, from oldest to newest:
Who cares if the links are big or small if no one wants to follow them? Check out "MORE THAN LEGIBLE: on links that readers don't want to follow", based on a talk by Mark Bernstein
http://www.markbernstein.org/talks/HT00.html
Posted by Victor @ 04/23/2001 01:59 AM pst
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"shouldn't it also be an example of yoru excellence"
Cute! Cute! You're funnier than you look. Keep up the good work, I visit regularly.
Posted by GrammarGirl @ 04/23/2001 08:26 AM pst
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i find the idea of evaluating personal sites by commercial/business and or standard usability practices silly, regarless of whether they're personal-professional hybrids or not. when i go to someone's personal site i'm not necessarily trying to find anything. quite the opposite, in fact. sometimes it's an exercise in getting lost. i'm looking to see who might be pushing what envelope in what kind of interesting way. whether they're totally succesful at it or not isn't as important to me as just watching them attempt it.
i'm afraid that conversations like this actually keep people from taking the chance of falling flat on their face by trying something that flies against conventional thinking. i certainly don't want the bay-chi police talking about MY site under the subject line of "another loser site."
the web is different things to different people, thank god. you can't apply a blanket set of rules to everything on it any more than you can ask the world to speak the same language.
Posted by Mike @ 04/23/2001 11:14 PM pst
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nathan responds to the debate. nice answer!
Posted by christina @ 04/24/2001 08:24 AM pst
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Yeah, the type is small but still readable (at 1024). I have to say that it looks goods and works. I was confused at first by the target area for the links but worked that one out in about 5 seconds.
I'm still in two minds about the blue text on blue background - it works even though I think it shouldn't work. At least, not as well as it does. Even the blue hyperlinks (which are closer in colour to the background than the rest of the text) are still readable.
Did I say it looks good? It looks good. And it isn't grey.
Posted by Paul Nattress @ 04/25/2001 12:45 AM pst
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gray is the new black. green is the new orange.
Posted by christina @ 04/25/2001 07:59 AM pst
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I predict that green will be the new grey (which was the old black) and blue will be the new green (which was the old orange). White will always be in fashion and somebody somewhere will experiment with psychodelia once again.
Too much grey around at the moment, need something more sparkling and original.
Posted by Paul Nattress @ 04/26/2001 12:57 AM pst
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