[Web4lib] Sub sites: - how do you differentiate?

[Pons, Lisa (ponslm)]

Our web team is in  the throes of a deep philosophical debate right now about design for our sites. I have my opinion, but I wonder if I am right... so:

We have one umbrella organization: University Libraries, which is made up of 10 college and departmental libraries.

We have a main site:
http://www.libraries.uc.edu/

and each of our c&d sites have their own sites, of which these are a few:
http://www.libraries.uc.edu/classics/
http://www.libraries.uc.edu/arb/
http://www.libraries.uc.edu/rwc/


Originally, our concept was our main site would have red as the "highlight color", and then each C&D, or sub site could choose their own highlight color. The idea being that navigation and terminology would be similar, yet the color would help to distinguish one site from the other.

Now however, some sites want to use the red... some don't... some want the same highlight color as another.

Questions:
-As a user, would you feel the color is important to help you know where you are?
-Would it matter to you if 4 of the sites were identical, and the rest each had a different color?
-Would it be better if each site was completely different, navigation, structure, etc...?

Are there any articles, websites etc... that would help us in making this decision?

Have any of you run into this issue? How did you resolve it?

Thanks in advance!

Lisa Pons-Haitz
University of Cincinnati Libraries