The New York Times did a write-up of the NASA.gov site which CM's Toronto office helped re-launch recently. We've been calling it "NASA 5.0" internally as the launch coincides with NASA's 50th birthday—so as you can imagine, it's got some symbolic significance. I've been checking out the site all morning and I'm really encouraged by a few things that I'm seeing considering that this was a large scale effort of a government website. Below are a few features that caught my eye:
Content Rich Homepage
Conventional wisdom on "corporate" Web sites used to be that you had to get all your content above the fold if you wanted people to see it. Nasa.gov uses the "accordion" interface convention to bring additional content above the fold, but celebrates that the site has valuable content to offer by putting a healthy dose of it on the homepage.
Social Bookmarking Options
I really liked how I was presented with multiple ways to bookmark the site to suite my preference. A simple tactic, but nice to see on a site like this.
Tag Clouds
Didn't expect to see a tag cloud on a NASA site, but given the content rich nature of the experience, it kind of makes sense. Quickly calls out what others are looking at.
Visual Browsing
I really liked this touch. In today's ADD-driven world, we need visual cues to help us prioritize things. This is a nice simple way to prioritize content that Nasa feels is important (without being too heavy-handed).
Launch Calendar + Mission Milestones
Thought this was REALLY cool and effective. My guess is that the insight that drove this tactic was that "space exploration junkies" like to follow NASA's progress on a daily if not hourly basis. What a nice way to provide this info.
Image Gallery
Liked the horizontal use of the "accordion" convention here. Flipping through images was enjoyable, and I could download high quality photos for wallpaper etc.
Blog + Feed Integration
Something every large scale site will have to come to terms with in one way or another. How do you aggregate feeds and blog content? Was nice to see that NASA promotes blogs and puts all related feeds in one place.
Cool stuff from our folks in the Toronto office. My guess is that they've been working their asses off on this in a short amount of time—so kudos to you. A nice experience that feels informative, useful and on brand.
David,
Really well done. I am an occasional visitor to the NASA site and have been for decades. Look forward to browsing the updated version. Nice work!
Posted by: Lewis Green | Monday, December 03, 2007 at 02:07 PM
I think there are lots of great things on the site too, and sent the kid's section URL to my niece and nephews.
However, I think the site navigation is NOT well-organized. I vehemently disagree that you can expect people to search for content they'll like.
And that photo of a bunch of old guys is not really getting the excitement across!
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | Monday, December 03, 2007 at 02:29 PM
B.L. what part about the navigation was not well organized? I thought it was pretty straight forward. Were you disagreeing with my assessment of the "visual browsing". What did you mean by
"I vehemently disagree that you can expect people to search for content they'll like."
Also the "old guys" in the photo are the REAL crewmates of Atlantis. Maybe the photo isn't "exciting"—but it's real.
Posted by: DA | Monday, December 03, 2007 at 02:55 PM
DA, I love the new site but I had one navigation issue as well. I immediately gravitated to the visual browsing block (very cool) as my primary navigation and linked to the solar system section. Once I landed there, the block was gone and I ended up going back to the home page to find a new section.
Posted by: R Connor | Monday, December 03, 2007 at 04:50 PM
R Connor,
That's good feedback. The visual nav is strong enough to be global. I could envision a "rolled up" version of it on secondary pages.
Posted by: DA | Monday, December 03, 2007 at 04:52 PM
a great client, a great site, a great blog, a great conversation.
Posted by: Kelly Shaw | Monday, December 03, 2007 at 05:28 PM
I hate tag clouds, but I really like the NASA one. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I find it compelling visually with the words floating in space. But also perhaps I find it interesting to see what is actually "popular" on the site (presuming that the cloud actually reflects what is popular). In any case, I am, like you, surprised to see it and surprised that I like it.
Posted by: Christopher Fahey | Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 09:07 AM
This does some things really well. I like the ability to subscribe to the RSS feed that most applies to me. Good use of technology that is available when you need it, but stays out of the way if that's not your cup of tea.
On the other hand, the way it opens up a new window when you try to access certain content is frustrating.
Posted by: Cam Beck | Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 09:53 AM
Cam, the criticism on the windows is very much valid. I have a feeling it was probably a work around due to legacy issues. It's a fairly deep site. Thanks for the feedback.
Posted by: DA | Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 10:14 AM
David.. outstanding work. As a huge space buff, i am really pleased with this relaunch.. congrats to the CM team.
Posted by: Steve Mann | Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 12:58 PM
Now let's see them replace the space shuttle with something a bit less...20 years ago.
Posted by: Daniel | Wednesday, December 05, 2007 at 06:28 AM