Web Site Design and Evaluation 1999 Women s Small

Web Site Design and Evaluation 1999 Women’s Small Business Conference Patricia Egen pregen@egenconsulting. com www. egenconsulting. com

So You Want to Build a Web Site • Step one. – Plan, plan and then plan some more – Get your domain name! Now! – Questions to ask yourself • Understand your audience – What do you want to say – What do you want your customers to “hear” • • What do you want to spend How often will the information be updated Do you have technical resources available Where will the site “live”

Design Tips • KISS* rules – Keep it simple • Graphics are pretty; they are also slow – Design for the lowest common denominator • Not everyone has a fast Internet connection • Not everyone has a large or fancy monitor • Some people have trouble seeing certain colors – Keep your site interesting • Add something that changes, like a newsletter, or “favorite site of the month” to draw return visits * Keep it simple, silly

More Design tips • Don’t cram everything on the first page – Add “links” to other pages on your site – Draw them in. If you build it they will follow • (and follow, and follow). – Add links to other favorite places. Link pages are interesting to people searching the Web • Warning - put this at the end of your site or you’ll lose people as they wander off to your favorite sites too.

Top Ten Design Mistakes • Slow download times • People hit Escape quickly rather than wait. • Frames • Oh, how I hate frames! • Outdated Information • Very unprofessional • Sends a strong “we don’t care” message • Bleeding edge technology • Shockwave, sound, movies

Top Ten Design Mistakes - part 2 • Scrolling text and animations • Bouncing balls and banners • Complex URL’s • If they are too long, people won’t bother typing them in • Orphan Pages • Where do I go now? How do I get back. • Scrolling Navigation pages • People generally scan, not read • What they see in the immediate area is what they go away with.

Top Ten Design Mistakes - part 3 • Lack of Navigation support • Again, which page am I on; where’s the home page • Every page should have links to your other pages • Try to keep them in the same location. • Non-standard link colors • Not a biggy, but annoying to seasoned surfers www. useit. com/alertbox

Where to Start • HTML literacy no longer a pre-requisite – Both Internet Explorer and Netscape come with tools to help you design and compose pages – Tools like Publisher step you through web design using Wizards and design tools – Microsoft Office products (especially Office 2000) save files as HTML and are designed with the Web in mind • You can even use an Excel spreadsheet as an HTML page.

After you build it • Once you have built your site, make sure people can find it. • Use services that post your site on search engines – Some are free; most have a nominal fee • Make sure you put information in the page titles that send your message clearly

Tips to help people find you • Title keywords • Quality Printing vs Acme – Does the searcher know who Acme is? • Meta tags – description • “The best Print Shop in Chattnooga” – keywords • printing, brochures, mailings, copy setup, full color press Chattanooga quick

Use an evolutionary approach • Start simple – Use a free Web site service like Angelfire, Excite, Yahoo, AOL, etc. – Most services have wizards that step you through the design of a web site – Use your ISP, like CDC, Virtual Chattanooga – Some ISP’s will set up a root domain name for a set price – This means people find you by your company name not by the name of the Hosting ISP • Example: www. acmeprint. com versus www. cdc. net/~acmeprint – Grow your site slowly – Use “Under Construction” to let people know it’s coming

How did I start? • Design – Used Frontpage to get a feel – Researched what other people did – Searched the Web for advice – Switched to Publisher and now use Netscape Composer or an editor and actually code in HTML • Set up a free website on Angelfire – Did my family home page first, then set up business page • Submitted my sites to a Search company

What’s happening now • Run my own server – www. egenconsulting. com • Continually updating my site • Get an average of two business leads a month – Server is hit on the average of 10 times per day • Still learning every day

Places to go for information • Web Design sites • Create a successful website: – http: //www. hooked. net/~larrylin/web. htm • CNET Web design tips: – http: //builder. cnet. com/Graphics/Design/ • Search engine Submittal companies • Submit-It. com – http: //submit-it. com/subopt. htm • There are literally hundreds of companies – Go to these sites and search there • http: //www. looksmart. com • http: //www. about. com

More places to go • Free web site organizations – Free Sites Network • http: //www. fsn. net – Homepage. com • http: //www. homepage. com – Bizland • http: //www. bizland. com – 411 Web • http: //www. 411 web. com

A Bit of Whimsy • "Everything you know is wrong. " > Inside Macintosh, 1984 • "Colored or textured backgrounds, weirdly colored text or links, and a preoccupation with appearance over content are sure signs of a 'first generation' web site. " > Pablo Pig. Casso • Although art can be created with a chainsaw, this is hardly a justification for giving every would-be artist a chainsaw. ” > Vincent van Gui • "In a successful advertisement it's the graphics that grab you, but it's the text that does the selling. " > Pablo Pig. Casso • "Before you put a really dark background on your web page, ask yourself this: Why is it so much harder to drive at night than in the daytime? " > Henri de Toulouse-La. Tech From the Art and Zen of Web Sites (www. tlc-systems. com)

Questions and a quick demo • Questions? • This Powerpoint presentation can be found at the following URL: – http: //www. egenconsulting. com/egcforms. nsf • It will be under General Presentations