*** From the Archives ***

This article is from January 30, 2001, and is no longer current.

Great Sites: Gates Benevolence in Action

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These days it seems I can evoke groans of disrespect in any group simply by mentioning the name: Bill Gates. He may be the richest man in the world, but what a PR problem. He’s become everyone’s favorite man to hate. What can a man who otherwise has everything do to improve his image? For starters, Gates and his wife, Melinda, and his father, Bill Sr., are giving it all away — or at least 21 billion dollars of it.

Like the wealthiest industrialists who built the museums, libraries, concert halls, and university buildings that are so much a part of the fabric of our cities and campuses, the Gates have created a foundation in their own name. Whether or not you like where they come from, the checks being distributed in great quantities by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are clearly doing good in the world.

The Gates foundation not only supports more good causes than we knew existed, but also has money to spend on a good Web site. Yet this is not an expensive site. Instead, it is a model of clarity and concision. The design is clean, the navigation highly functional, and the information timely. The site fits the image of a well-run and beneficent organization.


The home page for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation benefits from a clean, straightforward, and efficient design.

This home page makes clear both the mission of the Foundation and the primary hierarchy of the site with three main links under the logotype: Global Health, Learning, and Pacific Northwest. These rollovers, which reveal drop-down links to topics such as “Reproductive and Child Health” and “Libraries,” appear consistently but not identically on every page.


Rollover links for Global Health, Learning, and Pacific Northwest make navigation pleasant and easy.

The Foundation is very clear about its goals, which the site’s hierarchy accurately reflect. Yet all links on the home page aside from the links in the three rollover dropdowns — including two columns of featured stories and a horizontal strip of business-like links across the top of the page — are non-hierarchal.

Under the column heading Recent Major Grants, you’ll find a list of press releases in chronological order. More featured items fall into a second column under the heading “Highlights.” This list includes articles and a link to the Narrative Gallery — an archive of foundation success stories. It’s not immediately apparent, but the photograph in the upper left corner of the home page represents a link to one of these narratives.

This photograph gives the home page its visual focus, and one of ten images appears at random each time the home page is loaded. This rotating narrative photo and link are implemented using a custom JavaScript to select one of the ten JPEG files for loading. These are all high-quality sepia-toned photographs of people, and they appear to be those actually aided by the grants. Where sepia-toned images are often used to give a retro look, here they lend a serious, no-nonsense quality. There is no shade of mawkishness; nor do they romanticize the work of the Foundation. They present the stark reality of needs met.

Clicking on one of the featured photos takes you directly to the story in the Narrative Gallery. This is a typical interior page with a focus on content. The Gates Foundation logo is anchored to the upper-left of every page. A short blue bar with three links — About Us, Press Room, and Site Map — overlaps the olive-colored background of the logo near the upper right corner of the screen.


Each article in the narrative gallery highlights a foundation success story or ongoing struggle. The primary categories of Health, Learning, and the Pacific Northwest appear along the left of the screen.

Notice that the main column of hierarchical navigation on the left of the page above includes the three focus areas of Health, Learning, and the Pacific Northwest, plus the About Us division. The Narrative Gallery is a section within this division, and feature stories fall within the gallery section. The content fills most of the page. A nicely typeset headline tops the column, followed by another sepia-toned photo with a caption giving the grant summary. The text, which wraps around the photo, is well-written and succinct.

Except for the navigational, search, and identifying text at the very bottom of the page (not shown), all elements are positioned using two tables. The top logo and navigation bar are one table, while a second table of one by three columns contains everything else. Within these three cells, the navigation bar is positioned using a nested table on the left, the middle cell is used for spacing, and several nested tables are used to position all of the elements that make up the article itself. HTML text is used for the entire story, including the green italic text of the quotation that is set within a yellow cell.


This screenshot taken in Adobe GoLive shows the table structure of the body of the Narrative Gallery article pages — three cells with nested tables containing content.

The articles pages are completely static, but not simplistic. The photographs are not in color, yet they are particularly strong images. In fact, the palette comprises few colors throughout, but the colors have been carefully chosen to direct the eye to links or more important elements without distracting from the overall feel of the page. The text has been confined to columns, and by interspersing images and breaking it up into narrative, captions, and quotations, it too takes on a serious, sophisticated look.

Each of the three main divisional pages (for Health, Learning, and the Pacific Northwest) has only a single photo at the top. These photos are silhouetted against the page, which has the effect of emphasizing the people in the pictures. The column of HTML text is broken up by red headings and links and sometimes offset against a yellow background.


The introductory pages for Health, Learning, and the Pacific Northwest take on a simple but effective design that use only small, silhouetted photographs.

At this level, the hierarchy of the site begins to blur a little, but in a useful way. First, the expanded links in the navigation column match the red heading links within the column of text. These links lead down a level to articles about the work that is supported by the Foundation. Each of these articles is full of links to additional information, which is thoughtfully arranged and presented. Some of the links cross over the site’s hierarchy to the Narrative Gallery section, while others connect to outside sources, including the sites of specific grantees.

At the bottom of the link list and of each informational page are additional links to press releases and, in most cases, grants. These links point to press releases or grants specific to the current division or section, such as Global Health. These sortable access pages to the databases of press releases and grants can go on for some length, a reflection of the Foundation’s activity level. But with the sort criteria provided, the lists are quite manageable, and like all pages of the site, they are simply and logically laid out and therefore very easy to read or scan.


Links lead to lists of press releases and grants by division.

As a public relations piece, this site is elegant and appropriately serious. The success stories are clearly written in a style refreshingly devoid of marketing hype. For those applying for grants, the site concisely provides the guidance and information needed, and in a way that encourages non-frivolous applications. The tone is warm and welcoming.

The Gates name appears on every page of this site, but in an association that is overwhelmingly positive. Are we being asked to choose between the good Dr. Jekyll — a.k.a., the Gates foundation — and the evil Mr. Hyde — a.k.a., monopolistic Microsoft? I think it would be a mistake to take this approach. The not-for-profit organization that is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, including its works and site, must be viewed on its own merit.

Read more by Clay Andres.

 

  • anonymous says:

    “The not-for-profit organization that is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, including its works and site, must be viewed on its own merit.”

    Every corporate behemoth must have a pretty PR face to confuse the public. All that money was illegitimately obtained through the sales of mediocre/bad/rip-off software. There’s no reson it should not at least go to the disadvantaged…
    I can agree to only that the *site* must be viewed on its own merit, since its design was undoubtedly outsourced — and they did do a good job.

  • anonymous says:

    Indeed, this site was outsourced. Check the headers: Phinney Bischoff Design House – https://www.pbdh.com/

  • anonymous says:

    Being old enough to, by far, pre-date PC’s (and was WELL into adulthood when I programmed my first PDP11-40) I recognize what a contribution Microsoft has made to both the industry and in this case humanity. Thanks Bill and Melinda for both this site and for a lot of pioneering.

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