The Scientist Magazine is now taking nominations for the best Lab web pages. They have also put up a list of staff nominations or selections which are really some of the best designed as well as presented webpages. Gone are the days when Research groups had webpages which could compete with budding school kid designer wannabes. If you need to attract attention and interest (not to forget young talented grad students) to your research then the Internet is one of the strongest avenues available – But if you’re gonna end up with a webpage designed in the most antiquated way then you lose a considerable audience and their interest in your work.

Most students lookup Lab or research group websites to not see if it would suit their research aptitude but also the atmosphere that prevails in the research group (yes, putting up photos from your group’s barbecue party definitely helps!).Also when you apply to a new position inevitable your employer would look up your group’s page, eventhough you provide an exhaustive Curriculum Vitae.

Yet another important part of the audience in the school kids who is looking to perform more in his class assignment and is directed to your group page by google – Oh..if you’re not on google, you don’t exist (so watch what you put in as the meta tags) . Now this is the curious kid who eyeball’s your sight for interesting yet easy to understand information. If you have a lengthy description of your research interest with dense graphs sprinkled here and there, Sorry! that’s not going to attract anybody let alone the school kid.

You can visit the nominations page to not only to recommend your favorite group pages but also see how people present information in the most interesting and appealing manner.