Designing Your Band's Website

[DudeAsInCool]

I saw a useful series of articles on how to make a website for your band on MSN. Here is the first one:

Sample Design Project -- The Band

May 27, 2004 | 41 Comments

So I’ve had this idea for awhile. I’ve wanted to do another Web design example project, this time for a fictional band. I really want to show that it’s possible to make a killer band site that looks cool and is very easy to use as well.

As I’ve talked about before (somewhere in my People-centric Web post), it’s pretty rare for these kind of sites to be usable.

I’ve been waiting to start on this until a few projects clear up and summer was here.

Well, summer is almost here and my projects are almost cleared up. I’m planning on taking the summer mostly off from freelancing to have a little fun and relax a bit. You all know I love design so I figure it’s about time to start my little fictional band project.

This time I want to do it a bit different and I thought one thing I could do is let my readers in on the fun.

A Little Background

The first thing I figured would be good to do is to document the project from start to finish as it happens, as opposed to putting it up and talking about it after it was done.

Then, last week, while watching all the comments come in about Design Eye For The Usability Guy, I started realizing how helpful that project was to folks and how involved so many people were with the discussion.

This was something new to me. I’ve been talking about design and usability for quite awhile and it’s only recently it seems like these things are becoming a hot topic when talked about together.

I think that is awesome and exactly what I’d hoped to accomplish with this design example project.

So, my brain started going and I thought, “what if I asked my readers to become a bit more involved during the project? What if I helped them shape this project a bit so they could get more out of it?”

Sounded like a good idea to me. So I came up with some ideas that should help y’all get a bit more involved, if you choose, as well as maybe help all of us learn a bit more in the process.

The Deal

As of right now I’ve done nothing but formulate the basic framework of this project. That and of course write up this post to explain it all.

Here is how I think it could work:

With your help (if you want) we create a back-story for this band. This will give me something to begin with and throw a bit of creative energy into the project. I’ll provide a little bit to get us started, and will take any ideas that come my way to create a scenario.

Once we’ve “made the band” and created a back-story I’ll kick off the design process, just as I would with a “real” client. Obviously there will be differences, but I’ll try and make it as real as possible. I will explain everything, and note where this might differ from a real project.

At this point all of you get to play the part of the band, well, in a way. I’ll post once a week, on Thursday, and talk about what I’ve done. You’ll have the opportunity to comment, ask questions, offer feedback or whatever. In this way you’ll help shape the direction of the project, and hopefully, we’ll all learn a lot.

Once the project is done we’ll do a big post-mortem, talk about the project, the final design and whether or not I met the goals we laid out for this design.

So, there you have it. It might be a wacky idea, but you know, I learn so much from reading about and discussing other people’s projects and processes that I can’t help but think it’ll be very educational. Lot’s of fun too!

Plus I hope to finally show how a cool band site can be usable! I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile. I hope to kick it off with the brainstorming phase next Thursday — so if you want to play, check back then!

What do you think? Am I off my rocker? Any questions? There is still much to be worked out and I’d love to have your input.

For more info and comments on this project, visit:

http://64.4.16.250:80/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang...fpCCVbafpL9g%2f