Sun, 10 Aug 2008

Reworking a Web Site

Reworking a website is an interesting undertaking. I am currently doing so with the Sacred Heart site where I act as the volunteer webmaster. I have changed the look-and-feel, but have also been working on the content and ability to maintain the site. That means, I'm looking at content and the technology which drives the site. (I really need to do that here, especially to clean up and compact the content, but, that's another blog.) When you rework a site, you need to consider a number of things.

The first thing to consider is the purpose of the site. For some sites, like commercial sites, that's relatively easy. For other sites like a personal site, it can be more difficult, due to the lack of focus or broader focus of those types of sites. So how do you start?

I think, you look at your audience. After all, a web site is a place where you want to show visitors something. What are they looking for? Look at your audience -- customers, parishioners, family, the general community -- and determine what they are looking for. Match this with what you are offering -- a product, service, idea, concept, schedule -- and determine how you are going to present it.

Now comes the interesting part that many people seem to forget when they design a site. How are you going to maintain it? Presumably, your site will not be completelly static over its life. It will change. New events will be added, products will be modified, services will be enhanced, thoughts will evolve.

The Internet is an immediate medium. People who visit web sites want up-to-date information, thoughts, products. You need to be able to modify your site at the speed at which the Internet operates -- and you'd be surprised at just how fast that really is. When something happens, people expect to be able to go on line within minutes and see information about it. If you don't have that information or they can't find it, they will go elsewhere to find it.

If you have a staff of hundreds to maintain your site, then you're probably OK. But the majority of us don't have that type of staff. Even at companies which support commercial web sites, it is often difficult to get information to the site in a timely manner. Consider this when you design your site.

I am working with a volunteer organization (a church and school). Even though there are some paid staff, the majority of the work is done by volunteers. Getting information from them to put on the site is a major problem. I have designed the new site to allow them to update the pages themselves -- or at least to make life easier on me to maintain then information that they do send me.

More later, as I work through the site redesign and start to work on this personal site.

posted 07:36 [/WebSite] permanent link