Fall 2002

10 Steps to a Better Association Web Site

by Carolyn Schwaar

An association’s Web site is one of its most powerful tools for connecting with members and the public. The key to its success is keeping it fresh, relevant, and compelling. The Internet offers great, free advice for improving your site. But too often, Web site advice overwhelms with its tech-jargon and a trail of links so long that you forget what you were after in the first place. RAE scoured the Web for you, gathering these easy-to-digest site tips.

1. You are what you post.
Although layout and design are subjective, it’s important to create a layout as opposed to just slapping up information. Make an effort to display content aesthetically and logically. Web authoring tools make it possible to control how your information is presented, so there’s no reason not to design the site. Think of it this way: Say two companies are selling the same product. One vendor hands you a photocopied flyer. The other vendor hands you a full-color kit describing the product’s benefits. Which one are you likely to remember?
Source: http://www.colin.mackenzie.org/webdesign/layout.html

2. Usability is not boring.
Sites that work are fun, and sites that look fun too often don’t work. According to Internet guru Jakob Nielsen, usability is not antithetical to fun. In fact, the greatest joy of using computers is visiting sites that work, where every function and link seems intuitive, he says. In contrast, ineffective are those that don’t do things the way you expect or feel sluggish or even hostile, despite the designer’s attempt to make the site pleasing to the eye. In talking about a design’s “look and feel,” feel wins every time, says Nielsen.
Source: http://www.useit.com/alertbox. Also see: “Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability” at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020512.html

3. Don’t annoy users.
If you don’t want to irk--and subsequently lose--your audience, avoid the following:
* A design that requires horizontal scrolling
* Frames with scroll bars
* Flashing--of any kind
* Pop-up windows
* Clip-art cartoon drawings
* Long site-registration forms
* Large, unnecessary downloads
* Very tiny text
* Low-contrast color combinations, such as yellow on white or dark gray on black
* Writing all or most text in capital letters
* Spelling mistakes

4. Sell more advertising space
New research suggests that the audiences of major Web sites rival those of traditional media. A study commissioned by New York-based Internet advertising company DoubleClick found that the audiences of major Web sites--Yahoo! Search, MSN Hotmail, and MSN Search--are comparable to those of prime time television shows. Yahoo! posts greater average per-minute viewership than NBC’s sitcom giant “Friends,” according to the findings.
Source: http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1432181

5. Promote your site without going broke.
Search engines such as Yahoo!, Overture, and AltaVista offer paid inclusion programs, in which you pay a fee to be listed in their index. The advantage to those programs is speed; your site could be available to searchers within a week after launch. The disadvantage is cost. But there are ways to promote your Web site online for free. These tactics include submitting your site to topic-driven Web rings (groups of linked sites devoted to a common theme), topic-specific search engines, and free directories such as the Open Directory Project and the Zeal directory. While these alternatives may take longer to list your site than mainstream search engines and are designed to promote personal, not commercial, sites, they are free. For lists of specialty search engines, Web rings, and other free avenues of promotion, visit:
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol5/promo_no11.htm

6. Follow these five steps to a great home page.
Your home page is your front door. Make it as useful and inviting as possible. According to Larisa Thomason, senior Web analyst at NetMechanic, there are five elements to a great homepage:

+ Keep your visitors awake. Many sites waste valuable space on their home pages with either a “welcome message from our CEO!” or an interminable mission statement--sometimes both. Use one statement to pique visitors’ interest and encourage them to scan the rest of your home page to see exactly what you have to offer.

+ Make it short and simple. Visitors want useful information that is served up quickly in usable, scannable chunks. Don’t expect them to scroll down through 3 or 4 screens to find out about your products. Instead, try to fit your entire home page on a single screen.

+ Tell them where to go. An understandable, easy-to-use navigation system is crucial because visitors hate to get lost on a site. Frustrated visitors leave and never come back.

+ Earn their trust. Visitors can’t see you. They’ll probably never meet you in person, or even speak to you over the phone. That means to increase your visitors’ confidence they have to be extra comfortable with your site. Include your address, phone number, other contact information, and testimonials on your home page.

+ Avoid plugins. Your home page has to work when visitors load it. You may have the coolest Flash animation ever, but don’t expect visitors to download a plug-in just to view it.

Source: http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol5/beginner_no2.htm

7. Don’t open new windows.
The one thing every Web user understands is the “Back” button. It’s an integral part of browsing the Web. Follow a link, then go back. Explore a search engine result, go back. If any link on your site opens in a new window, it breaks the Back button. The new window does not retain the browser history of the previous window, so the Back button is disabled. This is incredibly confusing for visitors.
Source: http://www.fixingyourwebsite.com/DiveIntoAccessibility/day_16.html

8. Plan before you build.
Before you or your Webmaster begins building or rebuilding your site, ask a test group of users to evaluate the planned site. It doesn’t take any special equipment or elaborate mock sites. Just create quick paper sketches that are easily revised. Your designer may choose to use a graphic program, such as Adobe Photoshop, to build simple, nonfunctioning pages. Offer your participants alternative sketches. Ask each participant the following questions:
* Based on this Web page, what do you think is the purpose of this site?
* What would you look for once you arrived at this site?
* What would you do next after seeing this Web page?
* What impression would you form of the association based on the visual style and content?

Organize content:
Recruit members or use your board of directors to help organize the information content of your site in a way that seems most logical to them. Index card sorting is a popular test method.
* Create cards of topics your site will cover.
* Ask representative users to sort the cards into logical groups.
* Analyze the groups that your users create as a guide to the organizational structure of your content.

Use the feedback from your test group and card sort to create a diagram showing the relationship of elements of information with each other.

Source: http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/602 and http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/108

9. Design above the fold.
Even though Web sites aren’t actually folded like newspapers, both use the phrase “above the fold” to define the area in which critical content must appear. For newspapers, the space for attention-catching photos and headlines is above the line at which the paper folds, in the space that is visible in the window of newspaper vending machines. For Web sites, that space is everything visible on the screen without scrolling down. Your audience should be able to discern where they are in the site and what content they’ll find on the page from the information “above the fold.”
Source: http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/602

10. If you learned only one thing . . .
The single most important piece of advice that Internet guru Nielsen has for companies designing a site is “run a user test. If you cannot afford the time to improve the quality of your Web site, it deserves to die.” Testing is easy. (See tip No. 8.)
Source: http://www.useit.com