Denver public library

Well, found out this morning what the “coming soon” for DPL was. It’s a complete redesign of their Web site. Overall it looks good but the new design has some significant problems: (replies included)

• They’re using XHTML 1.1 (Bravo!) but it doesn’t validate.
  

  It won’t validate because we had to do so many workarounds for different browsers and operating systems.

  I responded with a suggestion that they minimize the nubmer of errors. For example, they’re using mixed- and upper-case elements and attributes in places. Fixing these will not cause any browser compatibility problems.

• Try turning off JavaScript and taking a look. It completely falls apart.
  

  The site is designed to be viewed with javascript. According to our stats, 17 out of 1,089,035 users since January 1, 2004 have javascript turned off.

• Most of the time connection to the OPAC opens in the same window. Sometimes it opens in a new window.
  

  This is a new feature we are experimenting with. It’s possible that we will go back to opening in the same window if it appears to be troublesome to people. Many customers like to find titles we recommend on our web site and place holds on them, so it will be convenient for them to have the catalog open in one window and browse our site in the other. Due to the stateful nature of our catalog, you can not go back and forth in one window from the site to the catalog without losing your session and losing your hold.

• The comments form requires you to supply your name and e-mail address. Now there’s a way to reduce the number of comments you’ll receive.
  

  The form has been changed to optional, which is what was intended. Thanks for pointing that out.

• I’m seeing a odd little “–” in the bottom-left corner of every page.
  

  We have notified WebSideStory about this recently and are hoping to get an update to the code that prevents this. It should only appear in Netscape.

• The graphic on the “thanks for submitting your comment” page is broken.
  

  Thanks for mentioning this. You’re right! It has been fixed.

• Couldn’t all events be listed by default with searching as an option. Just wondering if this method had been considered.
  

  This feature has been a part of our web site for a long time and is due for an overhaul. We have plans to improve it in the near future. We probably will not have a list of every event on one page as there are too many and most of our customers know either what kind of event they seek or which location.

• What’s with all the “top” buttons on the Locations & Hours page? Additionally, the whole page is packed way to tight.
  

  The top links are there to get people quickly back to the top to use the navigation. Most of our customers use our site in 800X600 and therefore there can be a lot of scrolling on a long page like this.

• The content and background of the DPL News area on the homepage doesn’t line up correctly in Mozilla-based browsers, including Navigator 7.
  

  We’ll look into that.

• The whole thing falls apart in Opera.