Reviewed November 1998
Review by Walter Scales
Netskills ( http://www.netskills.ac.uk/ ) have just very quietly updated their Web pages, and very nice they are too: crisp white background with black text (my favourite combination!), and very cute highly optimised little gifs which are particular to Netskills; sensibly uncluttered pages (top level pages are rarely more than a couple of screenfuls); a very fast site even for elderly browsers, with that big familiar Netskills logo clearly emblazoned on the home page. Even when you get well into the site, navigation is clear, with similar methodology to the GNRT page, but much more groovy while still staying firmly within highly accessible parameters.
Netskills is a training agency, and as such their pages have a highly commendable, professional feel to them. I like the clear way the pages dealing with materials are laid out, and the clear registration procedure. I like their impressive little search interface (although the site offers two versions of it). And above all, I like the commitment to using metadata in the pages (rarer than hens' teeth on the Web). However, there are some annoying things lurking at the bottom of one's consciousness, somehow. There are one or two spelling inconsistencies, but nothing that we aren't all guilty of from time to time (a mix of 'online' and 'on-line', 'it's' instead of 'its', for example). There are lots of resources to help trainers (the Netskills searching and HTML resource pages for example - although they could be tidied up), but I'd like more done in the way of an up-front demonstration of some of the techniques that Netskills has used in developing these pages (a kind of privileged 'behind the scenes' tour); even apart from that, I'd like to see some practical demonstrations of 'right and wrong' or 'good and not so good' practical aspects, not only in Web design, but in using the Web in general - maybe a 'before and after' spot for one or two of their workshops - things you do now (or don't do!) that a Netskills workshop can sort out for you. Perhaps Netskills is worried that if they give away any trade secrets then people won't want to attend their formal training! Mind you, even if they did nothing else except provide a link to their excellent TONIC online course, Netskills could probably quite legitimately sit back and ask what more they need to provide online?
In another context, in Issue 14 of Ariadne I mentioned the excellent Bud Uglly site at http://wwwvoice.com/bud/bud.html, but here's another one that, unlike Bud Uglly, doesn't ostensibly set out to break every design rule in the book, it just tests them to the limit! Check out Jeff Rouyer's site at http://tstudio.usa.net/ which uses multi-layer DHTML to produce an almost hypnotically fascinating site. It's not so much a site, really, as a display. WARNING! Don't blame me if your machine hangs for a couple of days, and you will most definitely need a fairly up-to-date browser to view this site. Look for design features you like, rather than necessarily being enthralled by the tenor of the site. Colour scheme? OnMouseOver effects? Tailored Graphics? There are some rather original navigation ideas at the very least (including using short-cut keys to scroll). Lots and lots of practical examples of DHTML tutorials, source code, tips and tricks and practical exemplars. An intriguing site, quite informative, and very 'in your face', which I, for one, rather like.
Reviewed by: Walter Scales
Material on this page is copyright Ariadne/original authors. This page last updated on 10-Dec-1998