Good Web sites
Where are we?
This chapter is about the most important question in CoreDogs:
What makes a Web site good?
Please do this exercise. It will only take a few minutes.
Exercise: What do you think of this page?
Here’s part of a Web page.
How good is it?
Enter your thoughts in the “Your solution” section.
(Log in to enter your solution to this exercise.)
We’ll come back to your answers in a moment.
This lesson’s goals
By the end of this lesson, you should know:
- It’s important to know what makes a site “good.” Otherwise, you won’t know what to build.
- A good site helps people meet their goals. It helps the people who use it, the people who own it, and the people who build it.
- Some Web problems are easy to spot, like text that’s hard to read. But…
- Site goodness is about more than look. It comes to down to helping people reach their goals.
In CoreDogs, “people” includes humans as well as us dogs.
Why do we care what makes a Web site good?
Suppose you build your own Web site. If you don’t know what makes a site good…
... you won’t know what the goal is. You won’t know how to spend your time.
Suppose you hire someone to build a Web site for you. If you don’t know what makes a site good…
... you won’t know what to ask them to do. You won’t know when they have done a good job.
Suppose you’re a Weber. You build sites for other people. If you don’t know what makes a site good…
... you won’t be able to advise your clients. You won’t know how to build something that helps their businesses, schools, clubs, etc. You’ll can build something, but will it be the right thing?
Knowing what makes a site good is important. But… what’s the answer? Does animation make a site good? Video? Bright colors? Soft colors?
Here’s what I think. That means me, Kieran, the dog writing this.
A good site helps people meet their goals. It helps the people who use the site, the people who own it, and the people who build it.
Three stakeholders
Notice the three different types of people: users, owners, and builders.
Each one is a “stakeholder.” That is, each has an interest in the site being good. Each one has goals. A good Web site helps them all meet their goals. The more it helps, the better the site is.
People who use a site have goals like buying an MP3 player, or learning about core Web tech. A good Web site helps users do these things quickly and easily.
People who own Web sites have goals, like telling customers where a business is located, or earning customer trust. A good Web site helps site owners meet these goals.
Webers – people who build Web sites, remember – have goals, too. Like making a site easy to change. A good Web site helps Webers meet their goals.
OK, there are users, owners, and builders. And they all have goals. But they won’t all want the same things. What happens when their goals conflict?
Good question!
The short answer is that users are in charge on the Web. Owners have to work hard to convince users that a site is worth using.
We’ll talk more about this later.
A bad page
Sometimes it’s easy to tell when a site has problems. Check this out.
Figure 1. Bad page
The page is cluttered. The text is hard to read. The colors are ugly. There are spelling mistakes. Yuck!
But site goodness isn’t just about look. It comes down to what people want to do with the site. Suppose someone wants to find out how to get to a store. But the store’s Web site doesn’t have a map, and the address is hard to find. The site has a problem, no matter how good it looks.
The exercise
Here’s the page I asked you about earlier.
Figure 2. Google
Hey, Renata. What do you think of the page?
Well, it’s plain, and I like that. But, hmmm, ...
What?
If a site is good when it helps people do stuff, then, well, maybe the look is just part of it.
You can’t judge a Web page without knowing what the page is for. For example, you need to know what users expect to be able to do with the page.
Google’s home page is for one thing: searching. Here’s what people do (more or less) when they search:
- Think of a search term.
- Type it into the search box.
- Press the Search button.
Here are some ways the page helps:
- When the page first displays, the input cursor is in the search field, so the user can start typing immediately:
Figure 3. Cursor on page load
- Autosuggest. Here’s what happens when I type “cored”:
Figure 4. Autosuggest
If I’m looking for CoreDogs, I don’t have to type the whole word.
- When I have finished typing the search term, I don’t have to reach for mouse and click the Search button. I can just press the Enter key. My paws are already on the keyboard, so this action is a little easier.
The Google page is quite good, because it helps people search quickly.
But what about the look of the page? Isn’t that important at all?
The page is plain. Does that affect the user?
Well, I’m not sure, but there’s so little on the page that I’m not distracted.
Right! The way a page looks can affect users’ ability to do tasks.
But remember, there’s more than one stakeholder. How could a page’s look affect them?
Oh, I see. The look sends a message about the company.
Site owners want to tell users things, like what the owner does, or what benefits the site offers. The look of a page is part of the page’s message.
Check out this page fragment, with the text pixelated out:
Figure 5. A design
You know the site is aimed at kids, just from the colors and drawings. The page is telling you something, just through the look.
Here is what Funbrain.com really looks like:
Figure 6. Funbrain.com
The site’s designers have done a good job matching the look of the site to its owner’s goals.
A page’s look can send unintentional messages as well. Remember this one?
Figure 1 (again). Bad page
If you saw this on the Web, would you think a professional created it? Hmmm…..
Summary
- It’s important to know what makes a site “good.” If you don’t, you won’t know what to build.
- A good site helps people meet their goals. It helps the people who use the site, the people who own it, and the people who build it.
- Some Web problems are easy to spot, like text that’s hard to read.
- Site goodness is about more than look. It comes to down to helping people reach their goals.
Where to now?
This entire chapter of the Foundations book is about what makes a Web site good. We’ll look at it from three points of view:
- Users – people who use the site.
- Owners – people who pay for the site.
- Builders – people who create and maintain the site.
For each stakeholder, we’ll talk about:
- What their goals are.
- What actions they take to reach their goals.
- How Web sites help them do those actions.
We’ll look at two cases:
- CarlysSchool.Com – a Web site for a human obedience school.
- WanderingDog.Com – an online store specializing in portable electronics for dogs. MP3 players, cell phones, paw-held games, and such.
We’ll also start working on eMe, the Web site you’ll make about yourself.
Click one of the “Site users” link below when you’re ready.
