tecosystems

Rebuilding RedMonk.com

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I’ve got another iteration of the RedMonk IT Report coming probably tomorrow, but in the interim I wanted to let everyone know that the first iteration of an upcoming revamp to www.redmonk.com is now available at redmonk.com/www. Our current design has served us well since – wow, ’02 – but is getting a bit long in the tooth and needs a refresh.

If/when we get some feedback on it, I’ll share our goals and thinking with you but for now I don’t want to color your impressions with our plans. One important note: none of the links work – the design is up for the home page only, and the links are just placeholders.

Would appreciate any all thoughts or suggestions you guys might have, good, bad (I’m the guy with the gun 😉 or anything in between.

7 comments

  1. From a design standpoint, I’d introduce some contrast between elements.

    A lot of the text is the same size and has the same style treatments, e.g. the menu bar, three windows (Culture, Community, Communication) and the corporate What We Do boxes below those.

    This makes everything blends together and seems of the same importance, so my eyes don’t know where to land…or start.

    Some extra colours, perhaps a nice orange or tan tone, would be beneficial as well. There’s too much repetition of the same colours, which adds to the visual complexity.

    Finally, reduce the amount of content on the homepage. If something isn’t as important, make it smaller and use less words, perhaps none at all.

    I post because I care 🙂

    geof

  2. Ok, you asked…

    The page does not scream professional to me… I think it’s the simple boxes with the Arial font – it feels very basic and kind of ‘starter.’

    Info architecture…

    1) You have three separate sections for Services – the menu item, the Our Services and What We Do.

    2) Likewise you have several areas pointing to your blogs – the menu item, the blog posts (Im assuming these are yours, not interesting posts from non-RM blogs), the photos and the Resources. OK 4 places. Plus the resources section just has direct links to your blogs… and you have a nav item for those.

    3) Community is center of page… but just has general tech headlines

    4) Communication starts with your physical address… feels odd for a firm that is so distributed and mobile. Oh, and this section repeats the information in the Contact Us nav item.

    So… too much repetition, not enough Redmonk. What I mean by the latter is that you guys are, if you’ll excuse the meme overload, Analysts 2.0. You’re small, nimble, open, part of the conversation, mobile. Your site should get that across, overlaid with a veneer of professionalism. From this home page I don’t get a feel for the space you cover, why I should pay attention to you (where are the plaudits from other people?? Who are your marquee clients??) etc. Now, I subscribe to all 3 blogs… so I know. But someone coming to this page for the first time will not.

  3. I’d make the blogs more the focal point of the front page, with headlines from the last few of each of the posts from cote, Governor, and yourself.

    Of course, I’m not someone who’s paying you…

  4. I’ll let you buy me lunch and we can review in depth. 🙂

  5. Finally, now I know what you guys do:

    Aliquam persto jus autem qui abigo ventosus, bene te pagus bis ludus populus aliquam. Adsum aliquam persto jus autem qui abigo ventosus, bene te pagus bis ludus popu.

    It is all clear now. 🙂

    btw, I like the design. It is a lot cleaner but to be honest I rarely visit your home page.

  6. Google your name

    The other day, I heard a phone conversation between James Governor and Stephen O’Grady from redmonk. James said "Holy crap Steve, if you type O’Grady into Google, you’re number 4".He then said, "OK, what if I seach James on google…. …

  7. Geof: no worries. i want the negative feedback at least as much as i want the positive. totally agree on the content volume point, incidentally.

    rick: same as i said to geof, i asked for the feedback hoping that i’d get negative feedback, so it’s all good.

    1) totally agree. the entire page is plagued by redundancy

    2) see above

    3) excellent point

    4) yeah, we’ve already fed this back but somehow it still made the front page. need to fix that.

    Danno: we’ve been debating just that point for some time.

    Alex: thx so much for all of the offline feedback.

    Ian: thx. while the site is likely to be redundant for those who read our blogs, the feedback itself is important. much apprecaited.

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