Harking Back to Yesterday: Building Yesterday's Website, Today

Dalhousie University launches a new website tomorrow. They've got a preview on the linked article. For the first time in half a decade, it looks good. But what made this blog-worthy was a quote:

“Our old website reflected the web as it was understood 10 years ago,” says Dwight Fischer, assistant vice-president of Information Technology Services (ITS). “The site our team has built reflects the enrolment goals of the university and the web as we want and need it to function in 2010: user-centric, easy to use and more flexible to change.”

Too bad that website (which looks awful, BTW) was built about 5 years ago. All of those things mentioned (user-centric, easy to use, flexible) were not 'new' then.

It's hardly a coincidence that I mentioned this last week on 'Building the Modern Website:

Many sites still visible on the web are archaic, old designs. They are unpleasant to look at, unpleasant to use and most of the people who come across them think "when was this made?". Perhaps rightfully so. They can have actually been designed 10+ years ago, or simply have been designed in recent years but with the techniques of 10+ years ago. This includes sites made by so-called professionals, and by "{$relative}'s kid".

Eerie.