OPN - Open Network

As a redesign of our previous site (project page), the brief only contained the addition of one (1) additional feature: "Inspiration", thought of as a section composed of "design related inspiration from around the world". As a redesign of our previous site (project page), the brief only contained the addition of one (1) additional feature: "Inspiration", thought of as a section composed of "design related inspiration from around the world".

Initial research consisting of mapping usage of the old site, current trends on similar sites, isolation of key information-principles defined by the current content hierarchy was conducted by shiftcontrol and Mads Koser over the summer. We concluded that the addition of the "Remote content" section would need to be balanced thoughtfully to avoid shifting the balance of the site way off axis - the old site was used primarily to feature designers and artists working at or with LYNfabrikken in √Örhus.

After some quick, and some not-so-quick, prototypes, we devised a Panel-based rendering engine allowing mixing and comparison of multi-section content side-by-side as the basic information architecture - keeping the "let me quickly see what's here" functionality from the old site, but greatly enhancing it's potential.

The "Inspiration" section is populated by content gathered through numerous RSS feeds, made searchable, cached and archived locally and auto-updated with optional moderation and with a modular pr. site plugin system allowing us to access higher-resolution imagery when available on selected high-profile sites. Various workflows based on Yahoo Pipes (among others) are used to pull hard to get content, like Flickr Sets. Keeping the content sources for the "Inspiration" section strictly remote, allowed us to tap into the multitude of (mostly) freely available tools developed to manage the publication of online content - providing the users of opennetwork with a flexible and ever increasing platform of tools, like mobile-blogging, and the availability of highly personalized workflows for content publication. Making opennetwork exist as a node in a network rather than yet another self centered hub.

Of the numerous innovative features of the site, the ability to save a given selection of panels into a Collection (available as a RSS feed, permalink-able and print-able) makes it possible for users to create design Issues of their own. Products can be compared and saved as share-able inspiration or shopping lists, News articles can be referenced side by side and Persons can be located and recommended.

Visit opennetwork.dk