Forum OpenACS Q&A: What are the most visually stunning OACS sites?

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1: What are the most visually stunning OACS sites?
Posted by David Geilhufe on 05/18/02 06:21 AM
If you had to use just one live ACS/ OACS (tcl) site as an example of superior/ professional look and feel with all the wiz-bang graphics of the dot com era, what would it be?

I realize that those two things can be seen as incompatible in some circles ;)

david
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3: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Patrick Giagnocavo on 05/20/02 06:23 AM
How about www.variety.ne.jp ?

Although it is all in Japanese 😊

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4: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Hamilton Chua on 05/20/02 09:47 AM

Web site Design, at least to me, can be very subjective . . . and its appeal may differ from person to person not to mention from browser to browser...

Check out these ACS/OpenACS sites and see if they fit your definition of "visually stunning" ...

http://www.canaan.com
http://www.numeritech.com
http://www.e-sulat.com.ph
http://www.semizone.com

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5: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by John Norman on 05/20/02 12:06 PM
Does archnet.org count? I'm not sure how much is still ACS but I believe it started out with ACS.
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6: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Michael Feldstein on 05/20/02 03:19 PM
Who did semizone.com? It looks like their needs might dovetail
nicely with dotLRN.
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7: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Jun Yamog on 05/20/02 06:48 PM
Hi Michael,

Deds and me did majority of semizone.  With the amount of custom
code that is put on it... I am not too sure I would like to migrate
that to dotLRN.  But then again I will evaluate it and if the client
pays us for then we must consider dotLRN.

Initially Semizone did not have that focused stuff in e-learning and
it then evolved to this "Education on Demand" thing.  Then
everything focused on it.  This is by the way the first ACS site and
Tcl site that me and Deds did.  Not too bad for a couple of newbies
to ACS.

Doesn't www.infiniteinfo.com count?  It looks ok although I must
admit it is the least functional site that I ever done.

If aolserver only counts without ACS code I think www.foxsports.com
has got to be the best looking and functional aolserver site.

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8: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Tom Jackson on 05/20/02 09:01 PM

Personally I don't see what the visual experience has to do with OpenACS. You could use wget to 'download' any site and have the static content served by an OpenACS install. OpenACS probably doesn't help or hinder the visual experience at all.

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9: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by David Walker on 05/20/02 09:10 PM
Well the thing is that clients aren't impressed up front by all the
technical capabilities of a site unless they can see visually
stunning sites with those technical capabilities.
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10: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by David Geilhufe on 05/20/02 09:19 PM
Tom-

You are completely right- visual presentation has NOTHING to do with anything important (other than marketing considerations). But if you are sitting in front of a person who thinks they have technical skills, but really doesn't, the best way to get them to sign the contract is to show them pretty stuff that does what it is suppose to do.
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11: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Reuven Lerner on 05/21/02 12:34 AM

I've learned the hard way that non-technical clients somehow think that there's a correlation between the capabilities of the software they're using and its ability to wow them visually. You can say, "But we can make it look like whatever you want; the important thing is the underlying software engine" until you're blue in the face, but it won't make any difference.

The problem is that many people associate a nicer interface with better-quality software. Here in Israel, I've had a number of clients ask how Linux can possibly store Hebrew in the database if it can't open Hebrew Word documents. Luckily, Mozilla has made it possible for me to view Hebrew sites, which has made it much easier to convince them that I'm not talking nonsense.

At the same time, I've found that giving a potential client a list of OpenACS sites demonstrates the common functionality that is hidden behind diffeent designs. Once they've seen 3-4 sites that look quite different but do the same thing, they begin to understand just what's going on, and that the interface can appear in just about any way they please.

Joel Spolsky has an interesting take on this at his site.

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12: Response to What are the most visually stunning OACS sites? (response to 1)
Posted by Rich Graves on 05/23/02 12:46 AM
I tend to show a couple old ACS3 sites, www.away.com and www.online.ie.

wgbh.org is not bad, it's ACS4.