Web reDesign Awards November 2007

I am a big fan of great design, and I wanted to do something to promote the efforts some Ugandans are making to bring great looking sites to the web. So every month, if I see something great, I will applaud it here. And if I see something horrible, I will call that out too. I wont see everything though, so you are welcome to recommend a site you know and love, or hate. Best Site: Node Six Benge and his team took what was already a great looking site and made it better. Going with a black background is always risky, but I think they have pulled it off quite well. The new site is still clean, and more importantly, it says that this company really knows what it is doing on the web. Love this look. Worst Site: The Monitor This was easy. For a site that is visited daily by every Ugandan with decent bandwidth, we expected better. Instead the Monitor made a rush of things for CHOGM and came off looking cheap. Biggest problem here is that I am not sure what I should be looking at. And worst of all, content is competing against the ads for the reader's attention—speaking of which, why on earth are you advertising lingere on your frontpage? Overall, it's not working. On the brink: The Observer Unlike the Monitor, the people behind The Observer did themselves a favour and did not rush to redesign ahead of CHOGM. What they have works well, but the design is beginning to look a little out of date. This site is already the established alternative to New Vision and the Monitor. They need a design that says independent and contemporary.