by Mark Brown
"Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one," wrote journalist and critic A.J. Liebling. But with the World Wide Web, almost anyone can own a "press," which can be used to disseminate the owner's views. What's more, that press reaches a much larger audience (the world) at a much lower cost (practically free) than any other form of information distribution that has preceded it.
But once you own a press, what do you print with it? Or to put it in Internet terms, now that you've decided to put up a World Wide Web site, what do you put on it?
There are really two issues here: content and presentation. Because the Web is such a visual medium (or multimedium, to coin a new term), the way in which information is presented can sometimes seem to almost bury the information itself.
In this chapter, you learn about the following:
Billy Crystal's Fernando character on Saturday Night Live used to say, "As we all know, it is better to look good than to feel good…and you look mahvelous!" Unfortunately, it seems that many Web developers have a similar attitude: they believe that it is more important for Web pages to look good than to actually be good. You can find plenty of sites that are loaded with colorful graphics and that have a multitude of links to click, but they often lack good, solid content.
Good looks might draw people into your site, but good content will keep them coming back. If your site uses all the latest and greatest Web design techniques but has no solid content to keep your visitors' attention, they'll just move on (see fig. 3.1). And they'll never come back-not even if you learn your lesson and add good content later.
Why? Because the Web is so huge, no single site will ever have a chance to be the nine-day wonder type of attraction that drew people's attention in the last century. It won't even have the "fifteen minutes of fame" that Andy Warhol granted everyone in the 1960s. With hundreds of thousands of sites on the Web, the odds are good that visitors will only stop by your site once and make up their minds about it in a hurry-and for good. If you don't grab their attention when they surf in the first time, you probably won't get another chance!
The flip side of this is, of course, that if your site has excellent content but isn't visually appealing, people aren't likely to stay around long enough to find out just how good it is. People have a tendency to judge a book by its cover, and with so many well-done, visually attractive sites out there on the Web, you're up against some stiff competition.
A case in point, chosen at random, is Rutgers University Libraries site of resources on American and British history at http://info.rutgers.edu/rulib/artshum/amhist.html (see fig. 3.2). Everything is here from the autobiography of St. Patrick to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Unfortunately, this unadorned list of links is unlikely to be discovered by anyone except academics doing scholarly research. There's a lot of excellent information here, but it's hidden by unspectacular presentation. It's not even that the index is badly done; in fact, the information is very well organized. It's just not presented in an appealing manner.
If you're going to draw people in, you have to present your site
the way a politician campaigns: you've only got the public's attention
for a quick sound bite, so you must make your impression
up front. Like it or not, Marshall McLuhan's statement about TV,
"The Medium Is the Message," applies even more so to
the Web.
| Note |
Though you want to strive for good Web page design, don't just shove a whole bunch of extra elements down your viewers' throats-give them a choice! If you want to add Java applications, animations, sound files, video clips, and even background graphics to your site, make most of them optional. Don't make your visitors automatically load a home page that is overloaded with lots of noncritical elements. Your viewers with slow modem connections will appreciate the opportunity to not view everything on your site. |
I've established that looks aren't everything, but that without looks you'll never get your message across. Now it's time to think about what that message will be.
Here's your new motto: "Keep in focus!"
Your Web pages should focus on a single topic or, at most, a cluster of closely associated topics. There are millions of different Web surfers out there, and most of them won't even slow down for a generic, generalized site. They want to find information and entertainment that suits their personal needs, wants, and tastes. The odds are that you'll never find even a handful of individuals who share your dual interests in, say, windsurfing and Baroque music. It would be suicide to mix the two on a Web page-those who are interested in one topic will be turned off by the other, and move on. But if you put up a site devoted to one or the other, you'll pull thousands of like-minded individuals in. (And remember, there's nothing to keep you from putting two separate sites on the Web!)
Remember, too, that you need to let people know about your site. The best way to do that is to get it listed on some of the indexing and search services on the Net, such as Webcrawler, Lycos, or Yahoo! You should give some thought about which category your Web topic fits into. If you're uncertain, check into Yahoo! (see fig. 3.3) or one of the other indexing services so that you can keep your category-and your intended audience-in mind as you develop your site. Table 3.1 lists the major categories and subcategories indexed by Yahoo!
Figure 3.3 : Yahoo! is a good place to go for information
about subject categories on the Web.
| Category | Subcategories |
| Arts | Humanities, Photography, Architecture, |
| Business and Economy | Directory, Investments, Classifieds |
| Computers and Internet | Internet, WWW, Software, Multimedia |
| Education | Universities, K-12, Courses |
| Entertainment | TV, Movies, Music, Magazines |
| Government | Politics, Agencies, Law, Military |
| Health | Medicine, Drugs, Diseases, Fitness |
| News | World, Daily, Current Events |
| Recreation | Sports, Games, Travel, Autos |
| Reference | Libraries, Dictionaries, Phone Numbers |
| Regional | States, Countries, Regions, U.S. |
| Science | Computer Science, Biology, Astronomy, Engineering |
| Social Science | Anthropology, Sociology, Economics |
| Society and Culture | People, Environment, Religion |
Above all, your site should be interesting. It should appeal to the audience you have identified for it. The topic should be focused-the tighter, the better. There are a million sites devoted to music, for example, or farming. The odds of drawing much of a crowd with such generic topics are slim-you're sure to be overwhelmed by other bigger and better established sites with more resources to devote to the project.
However, if your site is focused on something specific, such as Lithuanian folk music or llama raising, you're sure to pull in a devoted following of true, die-hard advocates of the topic. Figure 3.4 is a perfect example of a Web site with a tightly defined subject matter. The St. Augustine page at the University of Pennsylvania (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html) is a scholarly site devoted completely to the study of St. Augustine. There are complete texts (including some in Latin), images, commentaries, and essays, all presented in a well-organized and appealing way. And it's not stuffy-you'll even find the lyrics to Sting's rock-and-roll ballad, "St. Augustine in Hell"! Though this site won't draw many punk rockers or rocket scientists, its intended audience-philosophers and theologians, both amateur and professional-are sure to not only find it, but to keep coming back.
Here's another motto for you: Think hyper!
Every site features hypertext links; they're what make the Web the Web. Unfortunately, many sites throw up a huge, unorganized list of links, some of which are more relevant to the topic at hand than others. A well-organized list of links is a valuable asset to a Web page. Even if your site isn't immediately appealing to every Web surfer who browses through, a killer list of links will enhance the odds that they'll bookmark your site as a reference point. And the more often they log on to your pages, the better the chance that you'll hit them with your message.
Scott Yanoff began his list of must-see sites on the Net back before the World Wide Web existed. People would FTP his list of informative Gopher, FTP, and Telnet sites every month or grab it off their Usenet feed when it was updated. With the advent of the Web, Yanoff added Web sites and set up a site of his own to host the list (http://www.uwm.edu/Mirror/inet.services.html). It is, and always has been, one of the best topically organized lists of resources on the Net (see fig. 3.5). Take a look at his site, and try to do as good a job of organizing your own hypertext link lists.
One of the reasons that people love the Web is because of its capability to deliver new information with an immediacy that can only be matched by other broadcast media, such as TV and radio. Whenever news breaks-whether it is a major world event, or just the release of the latest new software product-you can bet that the Web will have the information first. If you can keep the information on your site up-to-the-minute fresh, you're sure to attract loyal viewers.
Don't let your site lag behind. Keep it up-to-date. Always be on the lookout for new information and new links. Make sure to delete or update older information so that your site never, ever presents outdated or stale information.
There are hundreds of daily news sites that do an amazing job of posting the latest news items every day. Even if your site isn't news-oriented, you can learn a few things by checking out how these sites keep up the pace. Figure 3.6 shows the Web site of the Beloit Daily News, one of the smaller newspapers keeping a daily presence on the Web-and doing an excellent job of it. Check out its site at http://www.bossnt.com/bdn.html.
| Tip |
Add a "Last Date Modified:" line at the bottom of your home page, and change the date when you change the page. That way, your audience will know when your page was last updated-and you'll have the motivation to change it often! |
So your site should be appealing, focused, organized, and up-to-date. That's not too much to ask, is it? The whole idea is to create an information vortex that draws in your audience like a spider draws in flies.
You've got to strike a careful balance between form and content, between innovation and familiarity. People long for the new, innovative, and unique-but, conversely, they are more comfortable with the recognizable and familiar. Everything must work together to make your site appealing.
Everything on your Web pages should be directed towards delivering your message. All should point to the center: your focus topic. Graphics should illustrate, links should be relevant, and design should set a mood.
There are people accomplishing this every day on the Web. For example, take a look at figure 3.7, the Web site for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at http://www.rockhall.com. The home page features a big, colorful, playful, clickable graphic menu that leads to fun and relevant areas of interest-from a tour of the museum itself to a list of the 500 top rock songs of all time. There's even a thoughtful link to the Cleveland home page. (This is a good tie-in because the Rock Hall is a tourist attraction, and potential visitors want to know about travel, hotels, restaurants, and other tourist sites in the area).
Right up front are two very timely items: a link to Rock News and an item right below the menu showing what happened in rock-and-roll history on this date. The first thing you think when you check into this site is awesome! But all of the information is relevant and up-front, so the site accomplishes its real goal: to entice people to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
How can you tell when you've done as good a job as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Why, when your site is chosen to be listed in the Point survey of the top five percent of all sites on the Web, of course!
The Point survey is the biggest and most well-established of all the organizations that award best of status to sites on the Web. If a site is included on Point's list of the top five percent, you can bet it features a good combination of content, presentation, and expertise. If you really want a short course on how to do your own Web site, log on to the Point site at http://www.pointcom.com (see fig. 3.8) and check out some of the sites listed there. They're all indexed by category, so it's easy to survey your competition.
Though the preceding section has been couched mostly in terms of building a personal site, the same advice applies to sites for business.
It's important to have a reason for your site. Define first what you are trying to do. Are you selling a product or service? Are you trying to encourage investment in your company? Is user support the main issue? Or are you trying to build name recognition?
You can do all of these things at once, but it's best to create clearly delineated areas for each purpose. Many of the most successful corporations on the Web start with "maps" of their sites on their home pages, much like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shown in figure 3.7.
If you have the budget, consider hiring a public relations firm to help, just as you would when launching an ad campaign. There are, after all, millions of potential customers out there on the Web. Grabbing their attention would certainly be worth the investment. However, if you do hire a PR agency, make sure you find one with Web savvy. The Web is a whole different ball game than any other medium. You might want to check out some Web sites of companies that are about your size and already on the Web (those that are not your competitors). Most Web pages designed by agencies have a tag line somewhere that indicates who did the page design work. Clicking their link will take you right to the responsible party.
Keep in mind when designing your site that the customers you're likely to draw from the Web do not have the same demographics as your normal customer mix. They are much more likely to be upscale, young, and technically oriented, though this may change as the Web matures.
No matter what kind of company you are putting on the Web, the following are a few surefire items that always draw attention:
Make sure that everything you put on the Web brings you closer to your goals for being there.
Do you need an example of an excellent corporate site? You'd expect the premier magazine of the advertising industry to host a good Web site, and Advertising Age does at http://www.adage.com (see fig. 3.9). It's flashy, fun, entertaining, and informative, and it never loses sight of why its on the Web. Check it out, if for no other reason than to read its reviews of other corporate Web sites.
Figure 3.9 : Advertising Age hosts a Web site that is
a model of a corporate site.
| Note |
Do you want more? McQueen & Associates hosts an excellent online seminar for businesses wanting to get on the Web. It covers all aspects of getting on the Web, from why to do it in the first place to how to advertise your presence once you're online. The seminar is titled Developing a Quality Presence on the Internet, and it's at http://www.training.com/315. A longer version is also available on CD-ROM. |
Much of what I've said above about corporations also applies to nonprofit organizations. But for organizations, the Web offers one additional advantage-it's the most effective and least expensive means ever invented for getting your message to the people.
Whether your organization wants to clean up the environment or clean up Washington; whether you want to raise the whole world's awareness of hungry children or just round up a few hundred kindred spirits who might want to join the Emily Dickinson Appreciation Society, you'll find plenty of sympathetic listeners on the Web.
Of course, an organization's site should be more serious (unless your topic is decidedly nonserious, of course) than a commercial site. It should certainly be heavier on information. Think of your site as more of a resource than a selling tool.
The following are some items you'll definitely want to have online:
There are hundreds of nonprofit organizations on the Web, from the Red Cross to the Boy Scouts. Yahoo! and other index sites provide links to them, and you can learn a great deal by studying what they've done. Figure 3.10 shows what one small site has done on the Web to support its membership and advance the cause of the WOMBATS. No, not the animal-the WOmens' Mountain Bike And Tea Society. (I am not making this up.) This Fairfax, California, women's biking group has been together since 1984, but these days it's posting its newsletter (and lots of other entertaining stuff) on the World Wide Web. Its site is at http://www.wombats.org; check it out to see what even a small organization can do with a Web presence.
All of this brings us full circle, back to the subject of personal Web sites. What should you put on yours?
Again, remember to focus. A personal hobby or interest is best, preferably one you know a lot about. The real challenge is to be able to draw in others who are interested in, say, airships, and show them something they didn't know before.
Airships? Yep! It's one of my passions. When I first got on the Web, I was disappointed to find that there were hardly any sites with any information on them at all. (Step One: Find a niche and fill it.)
So I lined up an ISP (Internet Service Provider) who would host my site for free, then I scanned in 30 or so airship images from a portfolio that was printed in the 1930s. (Step Two: Gather unique subject matter-not the same stuff everyone has already seen.)
Then I searched the Library of Congress's site and built up a bibliography of the hundreds of books in its collection on the subject of airships, including volumes in German and French. (Step Three: Go the extra mile, and remember your audience is international.)
Finally, I spent several hours accessing all the index sites I could find on the Web, tracking down obscure links to Web sites that had any information at all about airships. I turned this into a concise but complete list of links to those sites. (Step Four: Provide a well-organized list of links to other sites of interest to your defined audience.)
I put it all on the Web in as well-designed a manner as I could (see fig. 3.11). Then I advertised my site on several of the online indexing services. It didn't take long for other airship fans to find my site. Now I get over 300 hits a month and have struck up many good online friendships with people who share my interest. (And believe me, it was hard finding anyone locally who had any appreciation at all for the subject!)
Figure 3.11: My Web site, Up Ship! (http://www2.giant.net/people/mbrown/), is focused and factual fun, and informative-and consequently, is visited by hundreds of airship fans each month.
So what shouldn't you put on the Web? That's easy-just turn everything I've said so far around.
Remember to focus. Don't try to be everything to everybody. This is the number two problem of personal sites. They haven't defined who or what they are there for. They spew out whatever pops up in whatever areas interest them at the moment. You might see graphics of motorcycles, rock bands, comic book characters, and computer screens all mixed up like a nightmare collage.
"Wait a minute," you protest, "you said that's the number two problem of personal Web sites. What's number one?"
Even worse than a site that's burdened down with everything is one that contains nothing of interest at all. Many personal sites contain next to nothing: lists of CDs or comic books the person owns; pictures of his dog, gerbil, or fish; fuzzy photos of the site's owner goofing around with friends; and so on. Let's face it; except for a small circle of your very closest friends, nobody but nobody (not even your significant other) wants to know that much about you. So why put it on the Web? It's a waste of bandwidth. It's boring.
What astounds me is that many people are aware that it's mind-numbingly boring, and yet they put it up anyway! Some even seem to take pride in how boring they can make their sites, as shown by examples like Greg's Wonderful World of Really Boring Stuff (see fig. 3.12). Please don't ever put another site like this up on the Web. There are far too many of them already.
Figure 3.12: There are already too many boring sites
on the Web. Make sure yours isn't one of them.
| Tip |
The number one rule of writing is this: Have something to say. If a writer has a message, or a story, or a cause, she never gets "writer's block." Apply the same rule to your Web site, and you'll never have to worry about what you should put online. |
Another thing you definitely don't want to do is to put up a site that consists of nothing but huge wads of unedited, unorganized links, such as the site shown in figure 3.13. (And don't mistake alphabetical order for organization!) This site is like a library where the books are all stacked at random. It's almost worse than having none at all. People want useful links, but they also want to be able to find them easily.
Figure 3.13: An unorganized list of random links is of no use to anyone.
Another problem is the proliferation of useless applications that are on the Web just to be on the Web. I'm talking here about forms-based or Java-based programs that would make better stand-alone programs than Web applications. A Web application should be there because it makes sense for it to be on the Web. If it makes more sense as a stand-alone program, then write it as such and offer it for downloading. Figure 3.14 is a perfect example. This is a Web-based version of the old Towers of Hanoi game; it's a complete waste of Internet bandwidth. Please don't clutter the Web with this stuff. People won't bother with it anyway.
Figure 3.14: Why is this application on the Web?
The Web is a dynamic place, and everyone expects data to be up-to-date and accurate. The worst thing you can do to your viewers is to put up some purportedly useful data only to have it go stale. It's better to take your site down completely than to let it sit there with outdated, useless information.
Figure 3.15 is an example of a site past its prime. It features graphs of card prices for the collectable trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Prices for these cards fluctuate wildly, and when the data was current, this was a valuable service for card collectors. Unfortunately, the site is still up, and, as of this writing, the information is over nine months out-of-date. This is worse than useless, as someone is likely to consult these graphs and not notice that the information is outdated. They could make some bad decisions based on this old data. Don't ever do this to those who visit your site. If you can't keep it current, then take it down.
The following are some other items you definitely shouldn't put on your site:
| Note |
Bad grammar and poor spelling are rampant on the Web. If a site is worth doing, it's worth doing well. No one is too hurried to use a spell checker or grammar checker. People who visit your site will assume that bad English usage and misspellings mean that you don't know what you're talking about, and they'll move on. |
Just as there is a shrine for the top five percent of all sites on the Web (the Point survey shown in fig. 3.8), there is also a repository for the worst. It's called Mirsky's Worst of the Web, and it lives at http://mirsky.turnpike.net/wow/Worst.html (see fig. 3.16). Mirsky's picks the worst Web sites every couple of days and posts them with links. If you want a short course on what not to do on your site, a quick visit to Mirsky's will provide you with a lot of good examples of bad sites.
Figure 3.16: Mirsky's Worst of the Web enshrines only truly awful Web sites.
| Note |
I am not a lawyer, and this section is not a legal guide. It is, rather, an overview of some of the legal issues to keep in mind when you are developing a Web site. For advice on legal matters, consult an attorney. |
The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American the right of free speech. This does not guarantee you the right to say anything you want with impunity. People who feel that you have treated them unfairly have legal recourse. You can be sued for libel and/or slander for anything you say online, just as you could if you had printed it on paper. And in this litigious society, it is probably better to err on the side of caution than to strike out boldly and without forethought.
Controversy and debate online are fine, but if you're diplomatic and noninflammatory you'll not only avoid legal battles, you'll attract more sympathizers. After all, you're on the Web to share your ideas, not to entice someone to sue you. Before you post something questionable, consider the following: Even if you're sure you'd win, do you really want to spend your time sitting in court for months on end?
The right to privacy ties in closely with libel and slander issues. If you receive private information about any of your users-through a registration form, for example-you must be very, very careful about how it is used and who has access to it. Though there is no actual law guaranteeing U.S. citizens a right to privacy, there is long-established legal precedent that says it is a basic right implied by the U.S. Constitution. It is best to keep all such information completely private, unless you have asked for and received specific permission to use it publicly.
Perhaps no laws are more openly flaunted on the Web than those concerning copyright and plagiarism. Everyone steals text, graphics, programs, hypertext link lists, HTML code, and everything else from one another pretty freely and openly. However, the most recent U.S. copyright law says that all original creative works in any medium (including electronic) are automatically assigned to their creator when created. No registration is necessary (though it is a good idea, so that ownership can be proven if challenged). Again, it's best to not "borrow" anything at all from anyone else's site, unless you have written permission to do so.
Perhaps no Web-related topic has gotten more press than the issue of adult material on the Web and its accessibility by minors. It is such a hot topic that Congress recently included tough anti-pornography language directed at the Internet in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Although this law is certain to be challenged in the courts, it has made many ISPs very, very nervous about the content of pages posted through their sites. If you plan to post adult material on your site, you certainly should at least make people enter through a disclaimer page. And make sure you have the permission of your ISP beforehand, or you could be kicked unceremoniously offline at the first hint of controversy.
Got you scared, now? You say you need advice? The Electronic Freedom Foundation is the champion of the rights of those online. If you have questions about copyrights, pornography, libel, or other legal issues online, the odds are good that you can find the answers on the EFF site at http://www.eff.org (see fig. 3.17).
Once past the legal issues, you might want to stop a moment and ponder the fine line between rights and responsibilities. Are you the guardian of society's mores? Is it up to you to try to bolster a civilization that is sagging under its own decaying weight? I happen to think that the answer to that question is a resounding "Yes!"
I've always considered it better to be positive than negative, to build up rather than to tear down. With a forum as wide-ranging as the World Wide Web, anyone putting up a Web site has a huge potential audience, and therefore a potential to do great good or great harm.
Nonetheless, there are legitimate issues, worthy of open discussion, that are the subjects of controversial Web sites. Take the flat tax, for instance. Both sides of the issue are represented in force on the Web (see fig. 3.18), and both sides draw their share of criticism, harassment, and hate mail. I'm sure those who have chosen to establish these sites consider the controversy all part of the territory. There are religious denominations, environmentalists, pro-choice and pro-life organizations, neo-Nazis, and other controversial groups on the Web who are constantly drawing fire from others. Before you establish a site that's destined to become the center of controversy, you should answer just one question: Can you take the heat? If the answer is yes, then by all means go online with your views.
Almost anyone setting up a Web site is faced with one overwhelming problem: now that you've decided what should go on the Web, how do you get it from its original form onto your Web pages?
There are really four issues at work here, not one. Because the Web is a different medium than that for which your original information (brochures, videos, etc.) was prepared, you need to do some soul searching first to determine the following:
Your brochures, newsletters, and videos are a rich source of material about your company, your organization, or your personal interests. You can certainly glean a great many text blurbs, graphics, and clips that will help you communicate your message on the Web.
Just make sure the information you keep is targeted and focused on helping you meet the needs of your viewers. Keep in mind what I've said so far in this chapter, and you should be all right.
You should certainly throw away anything that is of use only to insiders. Remember that you are speaking to a worldwide audience, not preaching to the choir. Make especially certain that you do not post anything of a private or proprietary nature.
Keep all irrelevant or off-topic information off of your Web pages. Old annual reports, staff photos and biographies, and other irrelevant (read boring) information should be disposed of too.
Remember to think multimedia. Break text into short blocks and
mix liberally with relevant graphics. Put the essentials up front;
then provide hypertext links to the rest.
| Note |
Don't forget the "multi" in "multimedia!" Multimedia means more than just a few extra eye-catching graphic elements. It means video, audio, animation, and inter-activite applications all integrated into a presentation that draws your viewers into your material. The more involved your audience gets with your Web pages, the better they will remember your message. |
Build a good table of contents so that people will have no problem finding things on your site. Give them a clear, concise, topically oriented menu on your home page so that navigation will be easy.
Where possible, organize data into tables, or present information as charts and graphs. Make it friendly.
If you have huge scanned-in graphics, redo them so that they load in a reasonable amount of time. Remember the lowest common denominator. Scale them down in both size and number of colors so that they will look good on a 640 ¥ 480, 256-color screen.
If you have huge amounts of text as word processor files, first carve them down to a manageable size. Then feed them through a word processor-to-HTML converter.
Now that you know what to put on the Web and how you want it to look, you're ready to learn the HTML markup tags that will make your pages look and act the way you want. Press on.