Reflections: Site Structure
Since my site will cater to various audiences – professors, students, peers – I will need a way to get them to the content they want as quickly as possible. Often, professors at schools will use their branding through the school. However, before you get a tenure position, or a PhD, I think it is important to not associate your brand through the school. Since you may not be there in the next few years, branding through you as a person is essential to maintaining your brand from job to job. While I don’t know all of the limitations for professors (and some departments are more lenient than others), having a personal host site is essential.
Professionalism versus Unprofessionalism?
The possibility of having sub-sites is something that I have considered, but finding a meaningful reason to redirect is difficult. If I were to separate the site via personal and job related information, I would have lost the core of my brand – that each component defines me equally. Thus, blending current technologies will help to bring all of this together.
However, in terms of content, there are essentials that all of these types of sites have: CV, narrative biography, research, teaching, and publications. I am a fan of some of the focused designs, particularly those of the EMAC page and this course’s page layout. The use of pictorial and textual components is balanced well with the site navigation.
In terms of my existing brand uses, the picture I have is great to show one aspect of my identity which is distinctly more casual. I feel it is important that I have a more “professional” looking picture is important, but according to OKCupid’s site analysis that I read on the NYTimes, having a picture looking to the side with a more interesting background gives better responses to their users. While this isn’t for dating, putting this knowledge towards my branding image could bring some edge into the design.
The key issue here is professionalism versus the “hip” factor. It is essential to balance the two to reach my audiences. To do this, I believe that keeping the initial experiences professional and whittling away to less professional is key. However, linking to these non-professional domains should be easily accessible and only a layer away.
Here are a few sites to give you an idea of the spectrum of page designs. I’m sure you will cringe at many of them, but I hope they will not mind me using them as an example.
joefreeland
on February 24th, 2010
Hey Daryl,
Are you a professor or planning to become one? You don’t specifically state it in your post but you talk about what kinds of site a professor should have so I am curious. When trying to get that balance between professional and hip, a suit is the way to go. Suits are always professional but there have been a lot of suits recently that are hip too.