Web Site Design and Evaluation

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

2. 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”

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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 • Outdated Information • Very unprofessional • Sends a strong “we don’t care” message • Bleeding edge technology • Shockwave, sound, movies

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. How did I start? • Design • Used Frontpage to get a feel • Researchedwhat 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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 • 411Web • http://www.411web.com

16. 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 PigCasso • 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 PigCasso • "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-LaTech From the Art and Zen of Web Sites (www.tlc-systems.com)

17. 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