11 pages A4
Thinking about your own page on the web?
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11 pages A4 | Whether you're planning to create a site yourself or call on the services of a professional webmaster, the following guide will help you make sure you ask the right questions before you start. Why not print it out and read it off-line? You'll find spaces in many places so you can fill it in like a questionnaire. |
Think about why...
Think about style...
Think about layout...
Think about feedback...
Think about hosting...
Think about time and effort...
You may already know exactly why you want your page on the web - if you're running a campaign, for example - but for small businesses, it could be one or several of the reasons below. Think about which ones fit your objectives:
Look at what other people are doing in your field, and note the good ideas as well as the faux pas. But look beyond, at all sorts of websites - it will be invaluable if you can tell your web designer why you don't like one website, but do like another... Just make a note of the URL (the address which begins 'http://') and add your comments.
Knowing the profile of your intended visitors will help you get the right presentation as well as the right content. Are they clients? Customers? Or general readers? Are they young or old, and how do they use the web - surfing from site to site, or seeking out just the sites they think are relevant?
Put yourself in their place and ask, what information are they trying to find? And what will they want to do next (contact you? order goods on-line? find other related websites?)
Now you've thought about what your page is for, and who will read it, you'll have a good idea of the main content you want to present. This may be a presentation of the services you offer, with details of terms and conditions, availability, etc. Think of these as the essentials.
But think about extras, too - maybe profiles of your staff, or references or testimonials. At this stage, try to list all the extras which are desirable, but keep them separate from the essentials. (Later, when you're discussing practicalities with your web designer for example, you may have to discard some of the extras, or relegate them to a separate page.)
One last word on content, in keeping with the spirit of the web: think about freebies. One of the most remarkable aspects of the web has been the way the web community has shared information freely, often with no thought of reward. Even if you're a commercial organisation with a clear business aim for your site, you should think about what you can offer 'for free'. Some examples, real and imaginary:
Many web designers get carried away by the desire to make 'cool' websites. But you're the one who really knows what image you're trying to project. If you've got a flashing neon sign above your door, you may want a website to match, but if your strengths are quality and professionalism, you'll need a very different style!
Think about your identity - do you have a logo? Are there any colours or a particular font associated with you or your organisation? Is there a single background image or texture that would help convey the 'feel' you're after?
Layout is all about helping the visitor to find their way through a large amount of information. With a book, a leaflet or a wallchart, you can jump about from one part to the other with ease. On a computer, however, you're stuck with a fixed-size screen. Yes, you can scroll up and down, and yes, you move from one page to another, but it's more difficult to get an overall picture of the content and the relationship between its different elements.
Some questions to ask:
The key to a good layout is imposing an order on the different elements, especially if there is a hierarchy of information, for example:
Once you've established clear hierarchies like this, you'll be well on the way to deciding, with your web designer, how to lay out your web site (they may suggest using several HTML pages and/or using frames).
A further point: if some of the elements are static, and some are changeable, think about grouping changeable elements together. As an example, a specialist employment bureau may want to display:
Next, think about spacing. On the printed page, blank spaces mean wasted paper. There are no such worries with web pages (unless your visitors are going to print the pages) - a well-spaced page uses almost the same amount of disk space, and loads as quickly, as a compact design. But the web designer will have to find the optimum balance between:
| too compact | t o o s p r e a d - o u t |
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Even a small (5 Megabyte) website can hold a huge amount of text - your unpublished novel would fit easily. And, even with a slow modem, text loads quickly onto the screen.
The trouble with on-screen text is that it's hard work for the reader (who can't skim or flick through pages easily). How to increase its impact and readability? As in a printed document, you can vary the appearance with changes of size, font, colour, and by organising text in lists and tables. Here again, the web designer will have to use the optimum amount of text formatting (too many different styles will be confusing and look a mess, as well as being a lot more work for the designer and anyone who has to maintain the page). For more on fonts, see our font demo page.
Images, whether photos, diagrams or drawings, are what really brings your web page alive. They make the page more attractive and help understanding.
There are plenty of free images (mostly icons and buttons) available on the internet which you can incorporate into your page, but you can help your web designer by collecting together all the photos or images specific to you or your organisation (photos from digital cameras can be on disk; other photos and images can be given to the designer on paper, ready to be scanned in). If you're using other people's images, make sure you're not infringing copyright.
Be aware of the disadvantages of images: the space they occupy on the server and the time they take to load (In general, a large, high-definition full-colour image will take longer than a small monochrome image. Some surfers with slow modems will 'turn off' the images option in their browsers, so they don't have to wait ages for images to load - try it yourself! Your web designer must make sure that your page still makes sense when no images are displayed).
Also, creating professional-standard images and placing them on the page is relatively time-consuming for the web designer. The good news is that, if you use the same image several times on the same page (or on different pages in the same website), you don't increase the space requirement, the loading time or the design effort.
We'll just mention sounds and video images here, because, like still images, they're expensive in terms of disk space and design effort, and they'll be lost on many surfers who don't have, or have switched off, those options. Among the many examples on the web where sound or video is just a gimmick, there are some where they are essential - what about your website?
Your visitors will be happy to inform you of any problems they find with the content or layout of your web page. Make it easy for them to contact you by providing a 'mailto:' link to you e-mail address. But do make sure that any feedback you receive is acknowledged and dealt with (by yourself or your webmaster) quickly.
Of course, an e-mail address may be central to the function (e.g. sales enquiries) of your web page. Decide whether you need two different contact addresses, one for business correspondence and another for comments on your website.
Decide also whether open-ended e-mails will suit your purpose, or whether you need your visitors to fill in a form which prompts them for specific responses. Remember that a form is an expensive option in terms of web design - you can justify it if you expect to process a large number of responses automatically (e.g. feeding them into your database).
You can create and test out your whole website on your own p.c., but eventually you'll want to transfer it to a server which forms part of the world wide web. This server will be your host (the page you're looking at is hosted by Primex). Your most obvious choice of host is the ISP that you already use for e-mail and internet access, especially if they offer you free web space. But there are a few things to consider before you decide (if you feel they're too technical, ask your webmaster to talk them through with you):
You can attract visitors to your website from elsewhere on the web, if:
Other promotion includes all the conventional means of advertising (magazines, leaflets, t.v., etc.) as well as your stationery. And if you don't have a fleet of airliners as Easyjet does, you may just have a van with plenty of space for your URL on the sides...
One way to lose your visitors' goodwill is to allow your web page to get out of date. If you're asking an external web designer to design your page, you need to work out how you are going to maintain it:
Either way, make sure that any agreement stipulates that the site belongs to you or your organisation, not the web designer. Even if an external webmaster is maintaining your site, you should yourself keep an up-to-date back-up copy of the entire site on disk(s). Then, if the server crashes or hackers destroy your site on the day after your webmaster starts a month's holiday, you've got every chance of getting back to normal.
Think about time and effort...
If you have plenty of time, enjoy a moderate technical challenge, and don't require more than a basic website, you've probably decided to have a go yourself. You may already have produced a simple text-only web page from within Word or Lotus Word Pro (if you have the latest version). To go any further, remember that you may have to invest in some software (web page software, imaging software and FTP software) if you don't already have it.
If, on the other hand, your time is at a premium, the chart below will give you a very rough idea of how much of the work you'll have to do yourself (red areas) and how much you can hand over to a professional web designer (green areas).
| Research and assemble text content | 
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| Compose, type and proof-read text elements |
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| Research and assemble images (web designer supplies standard icons) |
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| Scan and enhance images |
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| Convert text and images into HTML web page |
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| Check for errors |
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| Load site onto web |
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| Submit page to search engines and directories |
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A webmastering service for individuals, organisations and small businesses. We pride ourselves on word-perfect copy and simple, efficient designs.
Think about Finedyne!
Text:
© 1999 Jonathan Wickens
Graphics:
Some home-made (with/without Lotus Freelance),
others from Leo's Icon Archive
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