Tracks & Trails specializes in planning Western Driving Adventures—RV and car trips to the American and Canadian West (and Florida!). Their experienced trip consultants are ready to help you chose or customize the perfect travel experience for you and your family. Whether you want to spend two weeks exploring the National Parks of the Southwest, just have time for a quick getaway to Yosemite Valley, or something in between, Tracks & Trails has the trip for you. The site was built by Jim and designed by Justin.

There is a lot of cool things to talk about with this project, including a robust Trip search and Google Maps integration. However, those will be the subject of a future post because today I want to focus on the design and identify some of the unique challenges and highlight some of Justin's cool design elements.

About the design process, Justin says,

"This was one of the first sites to include mood boards, and we were still trying to figure out the best way to utilize this new tool in the design phase. The main challenge was to try to capture the essence of what Tracks & Trails provides to their clients and reflect that in the design. I was able to draw somewhat off my own experiences in RV travel. The goal was create visual interest with a bright color palette and engaging graphics without overwhelming site content."

Two primary examples of this are the (soon-to-be-legendary) headset-wearing eagle and the iconography used for the trip navigation, which aid the user in how they want to find a trip, the core functionality of the site.

The Eagle:

Perched atop the main nav, waiting to take your call, is a majestic and helpful Bald Eagle. What was originally suggested as a joke, turned out to not only be a perfect way to visually set apart this global callout, but also a clever expression of the personality of the Tracks & Trails crew and the tone of the site as a whole. Travel might be serious business, but it is also supposed to be fun! (I won't be surpirsed if all of our websites end up adopting their own animal mascots!)

Trip Navigation Icons:

Another important aspect of the design was the use of icons in conjunction with the Trip Finder navigation. Beginning with the hompeage, we have these three buttons, which are immediate suggestions of how to begin using the site.

The use of color here subtly reflects the hierarchy of the site, and the icons are simple yet evocative.

This iconography is carried over into the dropdown navigation of the Trip Finder, summarizing the homepage options and providing some additional choices. By including icons in the navigation it helps to emphasize the importance of the Trip Finder to the use of the site.

Another design challenge was how to handle very fine content granularity in certain parts of the site. Balancing general infromation, specific information and related information on a single page without losing focus can be very tricky. Information "layerng" also helped keep things under control, like the tabbed sections and the image gallery viewer of the the Trip pages. The Yosemite/Sequoia trip page shown below illustrates how Justin was able to pull all this together.

This site, which went live on July 31, was a complete rebuild/redesign. The means that we went back to the drawing board prototyping and reimagined the entire site from the ground up. Justin designed it, Dave built , and the entire VFP team worked tirelessly to populate their new site with expanded and updated content.

One of the biggest departures we took from the design of their original site was to do away with a traditional home page, opting instead to have two main sections that focus on the needs of Village's two types of site users: Patients (pictured above) and Medical Professionals (below). Another stylistic change is the absense of DHTML dropdown menus. In their place, we went with an exploded left-hand navigation, which makes the menu items for each section visible at all times and easily accessible.

Here's what the old Village Pharmacy site looked like. We built it in 2001, and it was designed by The Melton Agency. At the time, it was a solid website. As you can see, it now looks at bit outdated.

Rebuilds such as this are only going to become more necessary as time goes by. Not only does web design and development continue to be become more sophisticated, but so does the expectations of the web-using public.

My wife (who is a web developer for Duke University) recently sent me this link to the results of A List Apart's second annual survey of the web industry. It thought it was so cool, I figured I'd share it here:

 Findings from The Survey For People Who Make Websites 2008

A List Apart is an online magazine which "explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices." In 2008, over 30 thousand people took part in the survey, with questions ranging from Age, Gender, and Ethnicity to Years in the Field, Salary, and the Perception of Bias.

With a global recession in full swing as of December 2007, we were particularly interested to find out how financially and professionally secure web people felt, and whether there were discernible differences in the way people responded to questions about satisfaction and security in 2008, compared with 2007.

The results are all pretty interesting--a detailed snap-shot of our industry. I was particularly fascinated by the numbers related to blogging.

As you can see from the screen shot above, over 70% of people surveyed are actively blogging. Although the numbers are pretty close across the board, I have to admit I was surprised to see that the "65 and over" age group had the highest percentage of bloggers.

However, before I get into that, I'd like to mention one more important defining quality of nearly every podcast--from the independents that are recorded in home studios, to the professional productions of cable networks, movie studios, and national radio outlets--podcasts are free. I think that's worth repeating. Podcasts are FREE. In this era of "staycations," "recessionistas," and multi-billion dollar government bailouts, I think we need all the free entertainment we can get.

How To Find a Podcast

Anyway, back to the topic at hand... No matter what your interests are, chances are there is a podcast out there for you. (And if there isn't, you can always start one! Of course, that's a topic for another post.) There are podcasts about music, technology, business, education, sports, politics, science, science fiction, beer, food, sex, ...well, you get the idea. Most podcasts have their own websites (or, at least a dedicated section of their parent site), but your first stop when seeking out new podcasts is a podcast directory.

iTunes >>

There are a handful of excellent directories to choose from, but ever since June of 2005, when Apple added podcasting, the iTunes Music Store has been the most important player in the game. Take a quick look at the main iTunes podcast page, and you'll see scores of podcasts produced by various big names in national (and international) media: NPR, ESPN, CBS, CNN, HBO, BBC, etc. The complete saturation of the directory by these "corporate" podcasts demonstrates the success and viability of the podcast medium, but it also makes the thousands of independently produced podcasts a bit harder to find. (Below is a screen shot of the Random Signal page in the iTunes podcast directory.)

Other notable podcast directories...

Podcast Pickle >>

Both a directory and community site for the world of independent podcasting. They offer the free "Pickle Player" tool that lets you embed your favorite podcasts on your own site.

Podcast Alley >>

This was the first comprehensive podcast directory, and it is still an excellent resource for both fans and podcasters alike.

Podiobooks >>

If a serialized audio book is available as a podcast, you'll find it here. All subscriptions are free, of course, and the authors get paid entirely from site donations.

Podcast411 >>

The original podcast about podcasting. Host Rob Walch interviews the people behind podcasts of every variety. The site also features the extensive Directory of Directories. 

How to Subscribe to a Podcast

So you've found some podcasts you want to check out. Now what? As we covered last time, all real podcasts are available via syndication (usually a variant of RSS, the same feed format used to subscribe to blogs), and that means you need some kind of feed aggregator. The good news is that if you already use iTunes or a service like Google Reader, you are already have all the tools you need. The listing directory usually provides the feed information for a podcast, but you can also get it from the podcast's website. Most podcasts provide information on how to subscribe right at the top of the page--often both basic feed info and links to subscribe directly via a variety of podcatchers.

Fun with Jargon! 

podcatcher - n, a type of feed aggregator, often a software application, that can identify and retrieve new files associated with a podcast when they are made available.

iTunes (again) >>

Once again, iTunes is the biggest kid in the pool. You can subscribe to podcasts with a single click in the iTunes Music Store, as well as download individual podcast episodes. Want to subscribe to a podcast that isn't listed in the iTunes directory? Simply go to the Advanced tab in your iTunes player, select "Subscribe to Podcast...," and paste the url of the podcast's feed into the field provided. (As illustrated in the screen shot below.)

Google Reader >>

Subscribing to a podcast with Google is as simple as subscribing to any other feed. Many podcasts have the familiar orange RSS button that, when clicked, will add it directly to your list of feeds. Just like with iTunes, you can also manually paste the feed url into the "Add a Subscription" area. Unlike iTunes, when a new episode of a podcast comes out, you don't just get the media file, you will also get the show notes for that episode.

More Fun with Jargon!!

show notes - n, the blog post associated with an episode of a podcast. Show notes usually contain a summary of the episode as well as links to any websites mentioned during the show.

Google Reader is, of course, just one of many blog/feed/news readers out there that will allow you to subscribe to a podcast feed. I could try to list them all here, but why should I when Wikipedia has already done it for me?

Juice >>

Formerly known as iPodder, Juice was one of the first podcatchers available. It is a free, open-source software application that runs on both the Mac OS and Windows.

Miro >>

Another open-source, cross-platform application. It markets itself primarliy as a free video player, but it works with audio podcasts as well. In addition to standard RSS feeds, it also supports BitTorrent (allowing Peer-2-Peer downloads). I don't have first-hand experience with Miro, but from what I've seen it looks very slick!

This concludes our overview of podcast directories and podcatchers. If anyone has used a service I didn't discuss here, please leave a comment. I'd love to hear about what other poeple are using!

In forthcoming posts we will take a peek into the podcatchers of the Newfangled staff and begin to examine the production side of podcasting. But in the mean time, go out and find some great podcasts!

What is a Podcast?

A podcast is a media file (usually audio or video) that is available for download via syndication. By subscribing to the podcast feed, each new installment of the podcast is delivered directly to your computer (and perhaps transferred to your favorite media player) to be played back at your convenience--a process known as time-shifting. Think of a podcast like a radio program that you can listen to on your own schedule.

This definition dispels two common misconceptions about podcasts...

Myth 1- You need an iPod to listen to a podcast.

The term "podcast" is indeed a blend of the words "iPod" and "broadcast," but a podcast can be played on any device that supports mp3 files (or common video files in the case of a video podcast). It's true that podcasting technology was originally developed with iTunes/iPod integration in mind, but it was never exclusive to those platforms. The name, for better or worse, has stuck.

Of related interest, Wikipedia's timeline of the history of podcasting.

Myth 2 - Podcast is just another word for a downloadable mp3.

I've seen lots of websites which claim to have podcasts, but what they really have is a link to download an mp3. I understand that this may sound nit-picky--after all, what does it matter what you call your downloadable content? Admittedly, most podcasts offer individual download links for each file and give users the option to listen or view any given epidose right there on the website, but it is, I believe, ultimately a question of perception. If you say you have a podcast (or blog, for that matter) on your site but don't offer a way to subscribe, it will seem as though you are just trying to take advantage of buzzwords without any real understanding of the underlying technology. Furthermore, the presence of a podcast on your site will signal to your users that there is more great content to come. If all you're ever going to have is a download or two, why would anyone bother subscribing?

In my next post, we'll dig deeper into the world of podcasting. Where do you go to find podcasts, and how do you subscribe once you've found them? Not only will these questions be answered, but Newfangled staff members will reveal some of their favorite podcasts. To use an anachronistic, yet oddly appropriate term...stay tuned!