
Behind the ICSE Web Site

Over the past two years, Ken Wong has worked on the ICSE web site. We finally caught up with him during the conference.
WOW: How did you get involved?
Wong: Well, back in early 1999, Hausi asked me about redoing the site. The original had circus colors, frames, and all that. Basically, they wanted to make it look more "professional", usable, and so on.
WOW: How did you decide on the look?
Wong: I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to design. I like clean layouts with strong alignments, and the black, white, and red look is pretty traditional. They also fit in the Canada theme.
WOW: What were the main challenges?
Wong: I think the main one for me was trying to not let the site dominate my time too much. The site can always be better and have more content, features, etc., but there's a limit.
WOW: How was the structure designed?
Wong: I felt it had to be reasonably logical for most people at various stages over about two years. It's hard making the structure evolvable and extensible, yet seem fairly stable and organized. I used Adobe GoLive and Deneba Canvas on a Mac to create the site.
WOW: Any interesting stats to report?
Wong: Over 230 000 whole pages and documents have been downloaded, and over 40 editions of the site have been published. One interesting fact is that nearly 700 sites link to us. That's amazing I think.
— Are Porter
