A Website can be a powerful tactical business tool. Unless it’s well integrated into your strategic plan,
however, it will be little more than an expensive business card and could even harm your mission.
If you work through the questions and
forms presented here, before you think further about producing or updating your Website, I can guarantee that
you will save time and money, and possibly a significant amount of both.
But, as they say on TV, there’s
more! As a bonus, you will have a more effective Internet presence
and public image.
Notice, I didn't say that you could save time and money, I said you would.
If it's not already, your time will soon be filled with dozens of critical decisions about your Internet
presence. You have to pick colors, fonts, photos, look and feel, Flash or no Flash, should it look like Acme's site,
where do you put the logo, how big should it be, who will host it and many more.
These are almost always among the first
questions asked, after all, it's got to be 'snazzy' doesn't it?
Fortunately for you , these questions and decisions are
generally best left until you are well underway.
Making them prematurely can have long-lasting consequences,
mostly negative, and usually very costly.
Form and Function do not have to be mutually exclusive, but on the Web, as with any 'human/machine interface design,
function must always come first. I don’t care how pretty it is, or if it won the Designey Award, or even if it
get a zillion hits a minute. if your visitor can’t
get what they want, with a minimum of thought and effort, you’ve
lost them.
In this brief paper I hope to help you ‘reorient’ your thinking a bit and ask the critical questions
up-front, before the first bit of content gets dropped on any Web page or the first photo is chosen.
I have included a set of Web Worksheets with this document.
You are free to use and adapt these as you see fit.
Only after you carefully consider the issues I spotlight here and
go through the worksheets, answering at least four critical questions should you even
think about how your Website will look. next
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