A Critique of the Unique
TrixieUpdate.com Site

BRIEF SITE DESCRIPTION – www.trixieupdate.com

Not stereotypically flashy, The Trixie Update’s sizzle is in its innovative infrastructure and graphic metaphors for otherwise mundane baby information. While the site certainly bends some design rules, the result emerges as both revolutionary and evolutionary in personal website creation.

I have never met The Trixie Update (TTU) site creator or his family. I learned of this site from my sister, who works with the creator’s spouse. My visits to trixieupdate.com were few and far between, thanks to being focused on my own newborn. The Trixie Update and its accompanying Trixie Telemetry so impressed me, however, that I wanted to revisit it for my website critique.
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SITE DESIGNER BACKGROUND

The site owner, Ben MacNeill holds a Bachelors of Art & Design (neé Bachelors of Environmental Design) from NCSU. He also earned a Masters in Fine Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SIAC). Working as a designer in New York, MacNeill learned to build websites by picking apart other sites and still recommends that method to neophyte site builders.
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AUDIENCE/PURPOSE

In the grand scheme of things, The Trixie Update is a small, simple site. Built and maintained by a stay-at-home dad in order for his working spouse to keep tabs on their newborn daughter, Trixie, the site sounds understandably mundane and of very limited interest. Originally, it detailed the three basic elements of babyhood: feedings, diaper changings and sleep.

However, all is not as it seems and thanks to Trixie’s dad’s background in design and arts, the site became a bit of a phenomenon. Visited by family, friends, new parents and the curious, trixieupdate.com set a new, largely unattainable bar, for proud new parents everywhere.

The primary audience consists of family—particularly the baby’s mother—and other relatives. The secondary audience consists of friends. Because of its innovative concept and design as a public site on the World Wide Web, an unintended tertiary audience includes curious onlookers drawn mostly by word-of-mouth (or forwarded urls, to be more precise).

The design elements establishing the context of audience and purpose include: the name of the site, title of the page, names of the subject headings, dedicated content of the site—in text, graphics and images. The site is thoroughly focused on Trixie (and, at times, her bodily functions). Unfortunately, as Trixie has grown, and with the arrival of a baby sister, certain original functions of this site are no longer running, but they are archived. Still, several components remain active and continually updated.
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NAVIGATION/ORIENTATION

Options abound for visitors upon first scanning TTU. Information is categorized in zones, including: Trixie Picture of the Day (TPOD), TPOD Comments, The Trixie Update Comments, Trixie Telemetry (originally feedings and diaper changes, necessarily discontinued due to Trixie’s aging out of those categories, and sleep), a graphic representation of 21 Months of Trixie Sleep Telemetry, journal-like entries (not updated since 7/05), a poll, Birth Announcement (a new baby, apparently interfering with the journal updates), TTU Links, and searchable Archives.

Categories make sense to users upon some immersion in the owner’s internal structure. MacNeill offers a clickable highlighted box, directed at viewers’ eyes: “First Time Here? Trixie Update 101.” This provides a welcome message to first-time visitors. To the right of this box there are also links to “About Us,” “FAQ,” and “Contact Us,” and a site “Search” box. While the site may take a moment’s acclimation, MacNeill’s exemplary efforts help bring the new visitor quickly up to speed on the purpose and structure of the site.

Site links are clear and understandable. Further information is provided with one click and it’s easy to return to the homepage by clicking on The Trixie Update hyperlinks. Site navigation is simple and efficient. No dead ends are apparent. Most pages feature obvious options for returning to the homepage. The Sleep Telemetry page does not include an obvious link home; although if one clicks on either of the highlighted links (promising and delivering more information), one is returned to the home page (although the central content includes the information relevant to the link). One can easily use the back arrow/button in one’s browser.
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DESIGN

The site offers a healthy balance of text, images and links. Built on a grid consisting of three columns and one row, the site's varying elements keeps TTU from appearing confining. Both fixed and flexible tables hold aggregate overviews of Trixie's measured functions. The resulting page indicates it's well planned, thoughtfully designed and from a reliable source.

The home page holds much text, yet the alignment of its columns and rows makes it easy to follow and readable. Innovative graphics help break up the text and the sections. Contrast between the elements is easy on the eyes with a pastel palette of traditional baby colors (just yellow and blue, MacNeill avoids the pink gender stereotype for girls).

The site's prime real estate is thoroughly maximized. Without appearing cluttered, MacNeill allows his site's first screenful to carry the bulk of his content. By doing this, visitors can quickly scan the screen for items of interest. He effectively uses white space between sections to keep the view appealing. Below the figurative fold, the page opens up, allowing for more white space and less dense content.

While the site's pages are not carbon copies of each other (or even a template), the pages offer consistent colors, font and design. For the most part, the pages offer consistent placement of recurring objects (through the use of frames). The page also utilizes cascading style sheets.

MacNeill designed the TTU to satisfy the majority of screens. According to his view source information, page dimensions are set for standard width and height. Only a very small amount of content, fairly inconsequential at that, exceeds the graphic safe area, although that amount was included in a scaled print-out.

MacNeill also designed TTU for Firefox browsers, something that pleases me immensely, as I also prefer this browser, yet am constantly vexed by pages optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer (when accessed via Firefox, vital content can go missing, when accessed through Firefox—a nasty quirk not always obvious to the Firefox user).

As briefly noted in the Brief Site Description, this site does not flow in a conventional form and breaks from some common design elements. While still offering visual logic through his very orderly grid use, the page lacks an obvious hierarchy as several items or articles seemingly compete for the reader's attention: Trixie Telemetry (TT), Trixie Picture of the Day (TPOD) and the blog-like journal entries. Initially off-putting or, at the least, intimidating, I’ve found that the best way to explore The Trixie Update is to utilize #9 from Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth—Begin Anywhere. Once one begins—anywhere—and dives in, information is easy to locate, plentiful, informative and entertaining.
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IDENTITY

The site's logo and clean design provide a certain identity for the site. Unique visual devices also help create its identity. These include the proprietary (but available to visitors for beta testing) Trixie Telemetry—graphical representations of Trixie’s early milestones, humble as they are for babies. Because the central content may change (depending on the link that leads visitors to it), while the framework remains the same, the look is generally consistent for this flexible site. The basic appearance (font, colors) is continued throughout the site, but some pages offer obvious variations. The site provenance is provided at page bottom.
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INTEGRATION OF TEXT WITHIN THE DESIGN

The text works well within the design. Page margins, columns, line length and effective use of gutters ensures the text does not overwhelm the site design. The casual visitor is easily able to scan the initial screen for items of potential interest. Once hooked, the text provides clear and readable information regarding the site and its subject(s). While the text is well integrated into the design, it is not as integral a design element—as much as it’s essential to the understanding of Trixie, her parents and the TTU.
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CONCLUSION

This site is effective at communicating its content to the identified audiences for the intended purpose, but to the unrelated, unaffiliated and unretentive (as in anal), it may come across as a literal representation of too much information (TTUTMI).

My own experience suggests that most users are more familiar with simpler sites relating the experiences of a first child—some postings, more snapshots—whereas The Trixie Update seems to have more in common with an early childhood development study funded by a prominent university than an online bragbook.

Still, the sheer novelty of this site, coupled with the shared virtual experience of witnessing the tranformation from newborn to bona fide child, makes it worth repeat visits.
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