Help your website everyday have a right start

"Help your Website Everyday
Have A Right Start".

The question: What do I do first?
"Help your Website Everyday - Have A Right Start"
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The answer might well be this simple:

Planning Session

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All good websites come from a good plan.
Sounds redundant, but it’s true. If you want to
create a good and solid website, you need a
good and solid plan. I know it’s hard to do, and I
know you want to keep poking and playing with
this exciting program, but it is time to take a
break away from your computer and turn to the
old paper and pencil. That’s right, we’re going
back in time to when people actually wrote
things down.
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On a piece of notebook paper, or whatever is
lying around, describe your site.
Take five to twenty minutes to come up with a
purpose for your site, or better yet, call it your
Mission Statement.

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Answer the following questions:
What am I going to do with this?
Who is going to read this?
What kinds of information will I be posting?
Why am I doing this?
Who am I doing this for?
How often am I going to be posting and adding
information?
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Now, compile this information into a paragraph so
it looks like this:

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This website will be dedicated to X, Y, and Z,
and cover the topics of A, B, and C. The audience will
be __________ ________________ _______. I will be adding
posts every _____________ about ________ _______ ______________.
I am doing this because _____________ _____________
__________________.

From: http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress

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Usability – 4 basic principles
“Make it as simple as it needs to be. But no simpler." -- Albert Einstein

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Your website is easy to navigate
Pages must download quickly
Information should be easy to retrieve
Restrictions must not be placed on users
There are lots of other ways that websites can place restrictions on its users, ultimately
damaging their usability - can you think of any more? Just think back to the last time a
website really infuriated you - what annoying thing did it do to make you feel that way?

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Your website has to be easy to navigate
Users have gradually become accustomed to particular layouts and phrases on the Internet, for
example:
Logo is in the top-left corner and links back to the homepage
The term ‘About us’ is used for organisation information
Navigation is in the same place on each page and directly adjacent to the content
Anything flashing or placed above the top logo is often an advertisement
The term ‘Shopping cart’ or ‘Shopping basket’ is used for items you might wish to purchase

There are numerous other conventions like these that enhance your website's usability - can you think
of some more?
Don’t underestimate the importance of these conventions - as the Internet evolves we're getting
more and more used to things being a certain way. Break these conventions and you may be left with
nothing but a website with poor usability and a lot of dissatisfied site visitors.

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Pages must download quickly
Just a few seconds is about the maximum time web users will wait for a page to download 3. So it's essential for
optimal usability that your website downloads quickly.
To speed up the download time of your website we recommend you read our article about how to speed up the
download time of your web pages.
There are websites that will test the website load times, and also report back on things that can be done to make
the site faster.
http://www.gtmetrix.com Works well for that.

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Information should be easy to retrieve
We read web pages in a different manner to the way we read printed matter. We generally don't
read pages word-for-word - instead we scan6. When we scan web pages certain items stand
out:

Headings
Link text
Bold text
Bulleted lists
Did you notice that images were left out of that list? Contrary to the way in which we read printed
matter, we see text before we see images7 on the Internet. For optimal website usability, don't
place important information in images as it might go unnoticed.

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Restrictions mustn’t be placed on users
Don't prevent your site visitors from navigating through the Internet in the way that they want
to. For example:
Every time a link is opened in a new window the back button is disabled. Approximately 60% of web users employ
the back button as their primary means of navigation 8 so do be wary of forcing links to open in new windows.
Don't use frames to structure your website. Frames can cause a number of usability problems, namely:
• Disabling the back button (see above)
• Bookmarking not possible
• Impossible to e-mail the link to someone else
• Problems with printing
• Users feel trapped if external links open in the same window
• Search engine optimisation issues

There are lots of other ways that websites can place restrictions on its users, ultimately
damaging their usability - can you think of any more? Just think back to the last time a
website really infuriated you - what annoying thing did it do to make you feel that way?

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360-447-7384

Links:
http://LibreOffice.org – software used to create the slides shown

http://goo.gl/hj3Ulk – Web usability is about designing and structuring your website so site visitors complete
your goals for them quickly and efficiently. A usable website can reap huge benefits on to your website
and your business. - by www.webcredible.co.uk

http://goo.gl/nwv9ND -

A Comprehensive Website Planning Guide by Ben Siegel for
Smashing Magazine.com (a number of resources here).

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Help your website everyday have a right start

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