Summary on the subject: Web Site Development
Web Site Development
I propose to develop a web site for anyone in the sunglass, contact lens, colored contact lens or laser vision correction market. The most important features included in this site must be: savings, convenience and top quality products. It is necessary to tie all aspects of the site together smoothly. By this I mean the shopper must have the ability to purchase at any point In the site, as well as the ability to get anywhere from anywhere. We must outline our available products and services in such a way as to make it a “No Brainer” for anyone. Our available products must be outlined from the onset. If vendors need to be contacted to develop a wholesale relationship then this must be taken care of as soon as possible. We must assess which products will maximize our profit, which will maximize our marketability and which are just of necessity to carry. We must develop a database of products and maintain prices, additions and subtractions accordingly. One service I had in mind was to develop a free service for anyone interested in laser vision correction. We can develop an application where the patient inputs his/her doctor’s written Rx or their contact lens box/bottle prescription, and we can take this information and develop a sort of internet merge letter. By this I mean, we can send them an email response as to their current eye condition, the best suited surgical procedure for their condition, history of other’s w/ their Rx & results and maybe even doctors in their area. I understand this might take away from the promotion of INSIGHT, but remember, anything free – keeps em’ coming back!! This will more marketing tool to draw people in, rather than a service. Also, some production company or another could be contracted out to develop videos which we could sell to candidates, doctors, surgeons, etc… Dr. Sopher could develop a video directed to practicing optometrists interested in sales techniques in the examination room.
We are standing on the precipice of a new culture? Sceptical, questioning connected with the world, thirsting for information and change. Technology is driving society at a pace unparalleled in history creating new attitudes, interrelationships, and global awareness. A new consumer is emerging, suspicious of traditional media sources, incredulous of advertising, and contemptuous of the contrived the hyped, the false. This consumer is not easily persuaded by clever graphics or manipulated by fads in design. In order to integrate all aspects of a ‘brands’ presentation on a web-site, the designer must move beyond form, colour and type and embrace the comprehensive impact of design. Enhanced awareness of the world; deeper, broader thinking about problems and opportunities; a respect for the historical roots of and formal conventions of design; planning and diligent study are required to create interesting global web-site designs. What? subject: Web site design on the Internet Focus: Web site design in the future. Objectives: To identify web-site designs that work, and to identify the reasons to why they work. Why? With the increasing number of web-sites that are coming online daily, in order for them to work, they are more dependent on good design for attracting readership than print is. How? By examination of the most frequently visited web-sites, and although a historical approach with reference to print in design. Section Two Design is the Answer What? Web sites need to be far better designed than anything in the print medium, due to the very interdisciplinary nature of the web-site. Why? Because a magazine with even minimum design gets its information across to the reader. You buy it because you care about the issues in its headlines, if you want more you jump inside, ‘print’ by its nature is a tactile phenonenom; touch, smell and accessibility, and it is for that reason it will never die. But web-sites are purely visual and aural, one screen at a time. Encouraging the viewer to go beyond the first layer, even learn where to go for what is required is a common problem for designers. It is their job to bring the viewer inside through the "Dance of the seven veils", and once inside, guide them, not to confuse or frustrate them. How? Web-sites that work are sites that do what you want it to do. They do not insult your intelligence, but neither do they obfuscate. They must indicate the wealth of material lying beneath the first page, but also offer you options and alternate means of approach. The answer may lie in better selling of the ‘land’ – in urban planning, to use a metaphor. The solutions to timeless internet problems – navigation, access to information – will be provided by design. Good design means; pertinent information, content, good ‘surfing’, exploring, and gathering. The designer is the Web’s real pathfinder. How does the designer achieve this goal? By drawing up an agenda for good web design. Section 3 and 4 Where does good web design come from? I believe that the principles print informed quality print design for hundreds of years and that these principles are equally valid online. TEN RULES OF DESIGN FOR THE WEB 1. Put content on every page. Design should not be decoration. It must convey information. Or entertainment. Content should come to the surface on every single level. Avoid useless and confusing icons, e.g. a navigation bar that has a? for help. Make sure the content is easy to read quickly. Break the text into smaller segments. On the web people are in a hurry. They want the information they are looking for quickly, like a dictionary, that’s still what the web is really about. 2. The first colour is white 3. The second colour is black 4. The third colour is red. This is a basic rule that has been around for 500 years. In Print white is the absence of all colours. White makes the best background. Black holds the highest contrast to white; therefore it is the first choice for text. And red draws the viewer in, and defines the image. 5. Never letterspace l o w e r c a s e When this is done the natural rhythm of the letters, so carefully designed by font designer, is ruined. In design if you look at what you do today, it should look like what you want to do tomorrow. 6. Never set a lot of text IN ALL CAPS Fonts were not intended to be all set in caps. They were intended to be upper and lowercase and to have serifs and descenders and ascenders so that they are easier to read. 7. A cover should be a poster A single image of a human being will sell more magazines than multiple images or all type. Avoid the pitfalls of ‘fads’. Design loses its power when it falls prey to what is popular now. 8. Use only one or two typefaces There are thousands of fonts on offer, this does not mean it is clever if the designer can use as many as possible at once, good design is pulled together by one or two fonts. The best combination is one light and one bold. (This seems to work with colours too). 9. Make everything as BIG as possible Type looks good in big point sizes, a bad picture always looks better bigger. 10. Get lumpy! The trouble with most web design is that it holds no great surprise. 95% of web pages have beautiful graphic homepages, followed by legions of pages that look like newsletters with stamps stapled to them. Vary the content from page to page; don’t keep to the format of picture-and-story. NINE RULES OF WHAT NOT TO DO WHEN DESIGNING WEB PAGES. 1. Don’t confuse the viewer. Keep the site consistently designed. For different pages and sections the navigation tools and graphics need to look the same throughout. Make sure the viewer knows they are on the same site when surfing your web pages. 2. Be organized with navigation. Make sure your buttons and navigational directions are simple and clear. Be consistent in these from page to page. 3. Don’t make oversize pages. Research shows that 50% of all computers used for the internet use 13" monitors, designers often use 17" – 21" monitors, ‘size matters", keep to 480x640 pixels. 4. Don’t design pages that require scrolling. This makes it painful and impossible to read in a hurry. Browsers will never scroll, they are more likely to press a button and keep going. Shorter pages break up content to bite size pieces this is more appealing to the viewer. 5. Don’t use big, slow graphics. No one wants to wait a minute for art or seven minutes for a video; the only acceptable delay when it comes to the web is no delay. 6. Go monochromatic. Monochromatic pages frankly look better and run faster. Web clutter is typified by free wheeling use of colour. Use one or two colours, not all of them. 7. Don’t overdo text. Web browsers skim and surf, if you don’t give them something quickly they absorb nothing. 8. Don’t use tiny type. It is very hard to read small type on a computer, make everything bigger than you would print. If you want to get noticed on the web make it easy and clear to read. 9. Don’t navigate by type. Navigate by image, it’s less confusing and never dull. Section 5. Conclusions What was the question? What defines a well-designed web-site? The "wow" factor – this is not cool buttons or fonts, or graphics, or audio or video, but clear, easy to read information in bite size chunks, good content, and easy to follow consist navigation. ent How do we plan a web-site that work’s? Step 1. Client requirements and Goals The Brief Strategic planning, and engineering. Step 2. Response and Refinement Trial Pages Design, Content, and marketing. Step 3. Approval The Prototype Final design testing and coding Step 4. Launch The Launch Style book, training, and quality tests. What’s it all about? Content; The internet means nothing without good stories, personalities and good direction.
Web Influence
The Internet will greatly alter the structure and operation of all industries. For the management of any existing business the central question is not whether the Internet will be relevant to your business, but rather what will we need to do to profit from that change (“The Internet”). The Internet is evolving many aspects of business and it creates many new business opportunities. It is developing what is called the “New Business Environment”, because it changes the way products are developed, distributed, marketed, sold, and serviced (“Business on the”). In theory, doing business over the Internet with consumers should be ideal however, many people are not comfortable with it yet. It will take a little while before most people are completely at ease and order products. First off, the Internet will provide many capabilities that will be very beneficial to a business. Some of the benefits include E-mail, Mailing Lists, UseNet, Telnet, FTP, Gopher, and of course the World Wide Web. All of these are a way to keep you informed and in touch with business associates and customers anywhere in the world (“What can the”). With an Intranet in place you’ve got an infrastructure for group applications, you don’t need to install software on everyone’s PC, they can just use their Web browser and while the main costs are in employee time, the cost of software has dropped significantly (“Put Your Own”). The effects of the Internet will take a decade or more to generally replace existing patterns of business. The Internet and its strategic impact are not technological issues, they are business ones (“The Internet”). Executives are likely to carry responsibility for whether their organization ultimately prospers or perishes in an Internet impacted world. The particular impact will differ between industries, so you need to identify the likely form of impact it will have on your industry and adopt appropriate strategies. A few threats are when using the Internet, competitors become relatively more effective, e.g. reducing costs, improving service and increasing sales impact. Also, some important customers or suppliers may have migrated exclusively to the Internet and are inaccessible in any other way. Some firms redefine the industry in a very fundamental way that threatens all existing competitors (“The Internet”). With the advent of the Internet, it has dramatically improved operational and sales effectiveness in numerous different applications. A few such areas are, on-line stockbrokers: such as E*Trade and Ceres, on-line travel agents, banks and other financial services: such as on-line banking systems, and insurance and fund management. Right now, there are many companies whose outreach is global such as Amazon.com and CD Now, soon all of the above areas will be global (Daring). Another area of the business environment that will be significantly changed due to the Internet are small firms, especially ones who wish to export. The Internet can relatively easily give small firms access to international markets, and engage in electric commerce (Cragg). However, not much is known about the use of the Internet by small firms, mainly because it is such a new method. An example of such an idea was taken advantage of by Elizabeth Botham & Sons Bakery. The bakery is located in a small town called Whitby in North Yorkshire and business is tough because it is geographically restricting and it is based in a very seasonable town. In order to do business and keep their staff hired year around the manager, Mike Jarman turned to the Internet. He found a company called Octagon Ltd., which helped him get started. Since going on the Web in 1995, the company has had over 25,000 potential customers visit the site and receives a dozen hefty orders a week (“Yorkshire Bakery”). The Web is a great distribution tool, the information you place on your Web site can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Web can save you time and money in information distribution over traditional mail and printing methods (Daring). Rather than reading a static advertisement, your customers can go directly to their areas of interest and see an intriguing web page. They can get detailed information on your staff and services, browse your product lines, and get up to date information on what is happening in your company. One of the benefits of a web site is that your customer can respond to you directly (Shaw). Even though the Internet has many benefits, there is still a few drawbacks to this technology. First of all, communicating with clients and customers via E-mail only goes so far. It is pretty difficult to market a product over a computer, basically whatever a customer sees they get. Also, empowerment is being transferred from sellers to buyers. The Internet is decreasing the importance of a merchant’s locale and information about competing products is readily available (“Business on”). Customers cannot be swayed by a salesperson over the Internet. A benefit as well as a side effect of the Internet, is it is knocking down market entry barriers, the Internet has no borders and the company’s market is global. A small company can be just as easily found on the Internet as a large one. The biggest problem that the Internet is going to have to overcome is the fact that people are still very skeptical about making purchases over the Internet. You could get scammed and not even know it. This will change eventually when people can be comfortable with the services that it provides, but this will take some time. With the incorporation of the Internet, business have undergone many changes in the past few years. They have become more in touch with many overseas company’s and even company’s here in the US. Many industries have realized that if they don’t adjust and incorporate the Internet in some way, they may not be around for much longer. Businesses are going to be on the Internet because it represents an additional and inexpensive resource for finding customers because they can market directly with less advertising and a smaller work force (Dearth). The bottom line is that the Internet needs to focus on growing existing accounts, extending to new markets and new customers, providing better customer service, and providing a higher level of customer satisfaction. Even though this may take some time, it is going to eventually happen and I think that most people who take a chance will be very satisfied with the outcomes.
How to Go From Class-Room to Web-Room as Painlessly as Possible
1.0 ABSTRACT Getting your course onto the World Wide Web (WWW) is best done using a systematic approach. There are a number of steps that need to be taken prior to starting any of the actual web work. Meetings should be held with various groups within your institution. Once the actual coursework is begun, there are some essential components and some optional components. There are specific skills and talents that you either need to acquire or you need to access. Each web-based course is unique, but they often have many components in common. Some are essential, others may be optional. Resources can be found on your campus, from the many web companies and from the web itself.
2.0 KEY WORDS World Wide Web, WWW, Distance Education, HTML, Web-Based Instruction
3.0 INTRODUCTION The number of degree credit courses available on the World Wide Web (WWW) has increased at the same astonishing rate as other activities on the WWW. There are some specific steps that can be taken that will help to transport the professor from the idea stage to the delivery of a course over the WWW. Also, just like any other educational technology, web-based instruction works better for some situations than others. Web-based instruction is useful when you want to create a virtual environment which is not easily or, perhaps, safely accessible. An example is sending learners to a virtual nuclear lab or on a "virtual tour" of the Louver in Paris.