Designing micro/mini sites?

[mariahlullaby]

I am just curious if anyone had any general tips for designing sites that don't have a lot of content (not empty, but are just general info pages without a lot of updates or constant news). I have sometimes have trouble designing sites that fit the amount of content -- I find myself trying to fill up the page, which isn't good.

On the other hand, I also don't want the site to look "tiny" as in have tiny little box in the middle. Just wondering if you guys had any good tips -- I like to look at other sites to get my mind working in the right direction, but other than that, nothing concrete.

This is a general thread, not attached to any project.

 

[angelwatt]

Some of the simpler wikis would probably work well for small sites that just keep info. This is also good for those who don't want to worry about the coding side so much. Content management systems (CMS) would also be a potential option. Haven't looked at too many, but I'm sure there are some simple ones.

My own personal site is kind of small and I just use php to control my "template" so each on page I can just focus on the content, which I hand code.

 

[radiantm3]

If there's not much content, keep it all on 1 page. People have this tendency to want to separate content into multiple pages even if content is sparse. Benefits of a 1 page site is it provides a more interesting layout, and your users don't have to click around and wait for multiple pages to load.

 

[angelwatt]

If there's not much content, keep it all on 1 page. People have this tendency to want to separate content into multiple pages even if content is sparse. Benefits of a 1 page site is it provides a more interesting layout, and your users don't have to click around and wait for multiple pages to load.

Speaking of a one page solution, I've put together an XML site that uses just one XML file, then an XSL file to transform it. The XSL has the CSS and some Javascript which controls the changing of the pages visually. I made one that mimics a couple pages of my site. It works very nicely and you can even bookmark the page states. I did it as a proof-of-concept, not sure the best use for it, but your comment made me think of it.

 

[jng]

I am just curious if anyone had any general tips for designing sites that don't have a lot of content (not empty, but are just general info pages without a lot of updates or constant news). I have sometimes have trouble designing sites that fit the amount of content -- I find myself trying to fill up the page, which isn't good.

radiantm gave great advice.

I think also from your description it sounds like you do have content ("general info pages") but static content that isn't updated like news.

If it's static, simple designs also work really well and you don't have to fill up the page. In fact I find some static minimalist (design-wise) pages absolutely gorgeous.

I actually don't like sites that fill up all the space available.