The October 2009 St. Louis DotNetNuke User Group meeting featured Phil Speth, who outlined some exciting DotNetNuke work he had done in implementing a web site for the city of East Lansing in Michicagan. The presentation Phil gave is entitled “The Goals, Challenges & Implementation of a Modern Municipal Website with DotNetNuke.”
One of the first things that Phil talked about, and something he and I had talked about previously, was how he had commissioned a design firm to create the design for the website. When the firm learned that Phil intended to implement the design in DotNetNuke, they basically told him that he wouldn’t be able to implement a lot of the elements of a good design due to limitations imposed by the framework.
The perception that DotNetNuke ties your hands from a design perspective is a common one, and one that may be based on the prevalence of people’s exposure to, let’s say, amateur DotNetNuke web sites. This is a common perception held by people both inside and outside of the DotNetNuke community. And, to be fair, if you plan to use extensive dynamic CMS features there is the potential to have to compromise a little bit, but the reality of the situation is that compromising on the design is the exception, not the rule.
So Phil basically told them to forget about how he was going to implement the site and just design it to the best of their abilities based on his requirements. And they did. And Phil made it happen. The website not only has a ton of killer functionality, but it also looks great.
If you’re interested in learning more about the implementation, including the thinking behind the navigation scheme, the extensive content management features implemented for the often non-technical content administrators, and the way site leveraged existing functionality available in the community, check out Phil’s slide deck and especially the video of the meeting linked below.
Watch the recording
View the presentation slides