Planning Your Personal Web Pages
Create an outline of what you want on your web pages before you start putting the page together. Ask yourself these questions:
What is the primary purpose of this page?
to market products and services, to display products and
services, to improve public relations, to provide customer support, to provide specialized
information?
What are the sources for text content text?
company brochures, company policy statements, product
specification, product sales information, product & service manuals or guides,
presentations, customer testimonials.
How can it most clearly be stated?
Be short, concise and accurate. Web users are usually looking for information. Do
not make them hunt for your point. Most will just go on to someone else's web site. You
will want to include a summary of your products or
services. (Visuals like photos and graphics should enhance, not detract from the text
content), business address & hours of operation, Contact info (phone, fax, and
toll-free numbers), Email addresses, Mission statement.
Who is the intended audience?
age and life style, job type and income range, computer literacy,
willingness/ability to accept new technology, location (i.e., where will they access your
site from: work, home, school, public library, etc.?) Use text
and graphics that will appeal to that group.
Establish your web image.
Your web site is an extension of your company. It's open 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week. What image do you want it to convey? Decide what you first want
visitors to see when they arrive at your site. Choose the colors you want to use to
represent your company. Put yourself in a visitor's shoes. Check out your competition.
What are they doing? Think of what you can do to make your site standout from the
competition.
How much interactivity do you expect from the
viewer?
Interactivity includes awareness of the intended visitors use of the
your site. If you are developing a large website, include a search function or a site map
so that visitors can follow the organization of the site to find what they need.
Will your web site be readable on various Web Browsers?
If you use JAVA or other applets, will your site
still be of use or interesting to a text-only browser, someone with graphics turned off to
speed up research, to a braille user?
What's more important: style or functionality?
Do you want feedback or are you just offering information to anyone who looks up your web site?
