The Lecture List was launched in May 2004. Over the twelve-month design and development phase, Dug was responsible for the entire user experience, from functionality specification through to application design, human interaction and control of the final coding of the site’s interface.
Special features
The system is designed to prove that an accessible site can be as beautiful and engaging as it is useful. The layout is all CSS. It uses no html tables for non-tabular data and deploys separate stylesheets for different uses. All parts of the design either shuffle or compress to allow for acceptable viewing on a mobile phone.
The information architecture was challenging by definition in that the database was—in theory—going to contain the sum of all knowledge. The final design is a tree structure with a network of primary ‘roots’ that each grow branches as users create new subtopics. The extensive and potentially quite ‘dry’ data is presented in a magazine format which allows posters to use photographs and html typography.
Organisers post events which then proceed through a moderation queue.
The site comes with a notification system that visitors activate by viewing events and then subscribing to them.
Any questions about the system may be addressed to Billy Clark
