Website Design Part 2

1
Website Design Part 2

• SI 539
• Fall 2004
• Sandra L. Bartlett

2
What is a Website?

• Groups of related web pages
• Unified by a homepage
• Developed by groups of people
• To meet the needs of other groups of people
• Not as a technology problem (unfortunately, the
  course forces this)

3
Cost of Bad Design

• 1 at design time
• 10 during development
• 100 during beta testing
• 1,000 when finished
• 10,000 or more after deployment
• Actual cost of making changes
• Loss of business

4
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

5
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

6
Site Definition

• Description of the site owners
• Description of your audience
• Knowledge, background, interests, needs, etc.
• Mission statement
• Statement identifying 2 or 3 primary goals for
  the site
• Strategies for designing the website

7
Site Definition (cont.)

• Content list (avoid scope creep)
• What you have
• What you need
• How will you measure success?

8
Note on Scope Creep

• Add new features
• Pad features and content at the urging of some
  special interest group
• Major changes in content or structure during site
  construction
• More content
• More interactive functionality

9
Note on Scope Creep (cont.)

• Usually occurs if the site is badly designed
• Most prevalent cause of project failure
• No single over commitment is fatal straw that
  broke the camels back

10
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

11
Site Planning - Production

• Production team in-house, contractors
• Production manager
• Primary content experts
• Long-term webmaster or senior site editor

12
Site Planning Technology (1)

• What browsers and operating systems should your
  site support
• Netscape? Internet Explorer? Mozilla? etc.
• Windows? Mac? UNIX, Linux, etc.
• What versions of these?

13
Site Planning Technology (2)

• Network bandwidth of users
• Audience intranet, English speakers, third
  world countries, etc.
• Connection speed
• Fast corporate intranets
• Medium first world middle and upper class homes
• Slow rural, poor, third world

14
Site Planning Technology (3)

• Dynamic and advanced features
• HTML, XHTML, XML, etc.
• JavaScript, VBScript, etc.
• Style sheets
• Java applets
• Third-party browser plug-ins required
• Security
• Email support, chat rooms, forums, help desk,
  etc.
• Database support login, search retrieval,
  etc.

15
Site Planning Technology (4)

• Web server support
• In-house or outsourced
• Unique domain name
• Adequate capacity for present and future
• 24/7 support and maintenance
• Statistics on users and site traffic
• Search engin
• cgi, PHP, ColdFusion, etc.
• Database management
• Production of audiovisual content

16
Site Planning Budget

• Short-term development staff
• Outsourcing fees
• New hardware and software
• Purchase price
• Service agreements
• Staff training in development and use
• Long-term hardware, database, Website maintenance
  staff
• New content development and updating

17
Site Planning Deliverables

• Information Architecture
• Detailed site specification
• Detailed description of site content
• Site maps, thumbnails, outline, table of
  contents, etc.
• Prototypes of several pages
• Graphic design and interface design sketches
• Detailed technical support specification
• Web server, browser, speed supported, etc.
• Schedule for production

18
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

19
Site Design Look and Feel

• Page and graphic design standards determined
• Illustrations, photos, audio, etc. contracted or
  created
• User interface forms designed
• Logo, header, footer, etc. designed
• Page templates developed
• Navigation link structure designed

20
Site Design - Content

• Researching, writing, organizing, entering,
  editing, proofreading, etc.
• Illustrations, photographs, movies, audio in
  their finished form
• Exterior links collected

21
Site Design - Technologies

• JavaScripts, Java applets, PHP, CSS designed
• Style for HTML, PHP, Java, etc. specified
• Database designed and prototyped
• Search engine designed and tested

22
Site Design - Accessibility

• Equal access
• Site owners policy
• Federal mandate
• Check site for accessibility at Bobby
  (www.cast.org/bobby)

23
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

24
Site Construction

• All HTML including all content
• All navigation links work
• All programming done and linked to pages
• All database components completed
• All audiovisual components in place
• Final proof reading of entire site

25
Site Construction - Testing

• Functionality and ease of use
• Database
• Programming
• User interaction
• Site reader support (email, chat, etc.)
• Beta test
• Readers outside the development team
• Criticism, bug reports, typos, design problems,
  etc.

26
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

27
Site Marketing

• Site should be an integral part of all marketing
  campaigns
• Print media, billboards, posters
• Radio and TV ads
• Lobby kiosks (libraries, schools, etc., too)
• Cross-promote with affiliated businesses,
  professional organizations, visitor information
  centers, city web sites, real estate offices, etc.

28
Site Marketing (cont)

• Direct mail campaigns
• Business cards
• Stationery
• Bills and statements
• Product manuals and packaging
• Response and warrantee cards
• Press releases

29
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

30
Tracking and Evaluation

• Site log
• How many unique visitors
• How long they stay on the site
• How many pages they visit
• Etc.
• Data in the site log used for evaluation
• ISP may have a site analysis service
• Off the shelf site analysis programs
• Write your own

31
Maintenance

• Fix bugs
• Add features
• Vet and add new content
• Maintain standards
• Check links (especially to the outside)
• Follow through on user feedback
• Do regular backups and archives

32
Site Development Process

• Site Definition
• Site Planning
• Site Design
• Site Construction
• Site Marketing
• Tracking, evaluation, and maintenance

33
Site Development

• Takes at least twice what you think
• Time
• Money
• People
• Thinking
• This is your job in this class
• Learn how to do most of the steps
• Do them for your project