Clients – Page 2 – Garrick van Buren

Project Launch: Developers.Sun.com

The redesigned Developers.Sun.com, another of the Sun projects I’ve been involved on, launched today.

Two things I’m real happy with; links to blogs, video, and other community spaces are at the core of the page, and a directory of development resources at the bottom of the page.

The official announcement from Jill Welch, managing editor.

Project Launch: Sun Downloads

Sun’s new download service launched yesterday – a project I’ve been working on for 18 months or so. Big congrats to Gary Zellerbach and the rest of the project team on this milestone.

If you’d like to compare and contrast, the initial four products (of the 1000s being migrated) are:

Client Blogging: Joanne Henry’s Laptop Stolen

When Joanne and I set up her weblog, she had a brand new MacBook Pro. No longer.

“I’m really missing my laptop – taken from our office while two of us sat on the other side of a half wall. We heard a small click and that was all.” – Joanne Henry

Joanne, I’m sorry for your loss. I hope it comes to a sastisfactory conclusion.

Client Blogging: Joanne Henry

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been setting up a blog for Joanne Henry co-founder of the Henry Schafer Partners marketing.

When I sat down to walk her through WordPress, she already had 3 posts ready to go. She’s been steady since. Which is great, her writing style is perfect for blogging – informal, local, and full of her personality. From her post on the Twin’s stadium construction outside her office window:

“What I’ve liked at the Ford is the ability to come up with an idea, run it by others – and get their participation – sometimes all within an hour, but certainly within the same day. Call it the anti-committee.” – Joanne Henry

Project Launch: Minnesota Judicial Branch Website

I’m happy to see the new Minnesota Judicial Branch site launched this month (old one’s available for a while here if you want to compare and contrast). Looks like it’s a somewhat ‘soft’ launch – as they migrate content from the old to the new.

Last year, I helped the Court Information Office with the redesign – specifically in the information architecture. Their goal was common – consolidate a number of separate sites – in this case, 10 district court sites and the state court itself – into a single, easy to understand and maintain, information system. All while still being clear about which level of the site you’re at (state or district).

Like all information consolidations projects I’ve worked on, the first step is asking: “What types of information is everyone publishing today?”. In fact, the answer resolved many of the information architecture issues. Asking the sites’ visitors what they were looking for answered some more.

There’s two new bits I’m most pleased to see made it through to the launch:

The find-a-district by ZIP code (also by map or County). Chances are you know your ZIP code more readily than your county or judicial district. Made it easy to use that as a key.
The ‘How Do I….?’ – global menu item for the most common questions asked by Minnesota citizens (Adopt a child, Change a name, etc). When we asked visitors why they were at the site, the vast majority of their answers started with ‘How do I….’. Only natural to have a top-level section filled with those common questions.

Congratulations to the Court Information Office on the launch. I’m glad to see it out in the world.