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Return to Class Session #1 | |
| "A couple of years is forever on the Internet". | |
| Emil Battazato | |
| Online Site Personality and Business Functions |
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At some point, you might ask the question "Should you be on the Web?" This lesson assumes you will be planning and creating a business website. Below is a structure for planning the functions, activities and content that will be included in your website. Start by putting yourself aside and taking on the role of "consultant" to yourself. You probably have preconcieved notions and biases about your website, what it is for and what it will do. You can use that. However, by stepping back and playing the role of consultant to yourself, you will be able to plan from scratch and therefore plan better and more thoroughly, ensuring that the website will:
This process, outlined below, helps you identify:
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Where do you start? I see Web planning as a process of moving from
a broadly defined concept in a few words, small on details, to a thoroughly
developed concept, heavy on details. |
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The process we are following is meant to help you develop the content and pages of your eCommerce site. It evolves as follows:
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In this lesson we will focus on Steps 3, 4, 5 and 6:
Step 3 - General Business and Goals Another way to look at the topic of "What business functions will you do online?" is to be more goal oriented. As a business person, you find that your goals lead your path to the Internet and help you choose website content. It's just good business sense. Business Goals
Personal Expectations
Step 4 - Determine what general business activites will be done through your site? One way to categorize E-Business activities is to note that E-Business is often used as a global idea wherein E-Commerce is one type of activity. Consider the following popular business activities on the Web |
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| Auctions | Banking & Finance | eCommerce |
| Communications | Directories & Indexes | Marketing & PR |
| Entertainment | Personal | Education |
| Info/File Sharing | Gambling | Etc. |
What messages should your site send? Will it be playful or serious, persuasive or entertaining, mature or youthful, Midwestern or urban, etc. A good way to generate ideas is to find sites that you like and use them for inspiration. Maybe you like the navigation scheme of a site. Perhaps the glossiness of buttons or icons. Perhaps you found sites with color schemes that inspire you. Yet another site is noted for its functionality. You may find a site that amazes you with how much content is effectively organized onto the page or another that does a lot with simplicity and only a little content on a lot of "white space." Consider the following in your answer and any other criteria that helps you in developing a Site Personality:
Here are some examples of developing a site personality. |
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Step 5 continued - Develop Design Parameters Website Design Parameters - Design Parameters is a fancy way of referring to your Design Tasks & Design Problems. They drive the site's Web Architecture. They are stated measures of success that will be met through implementation of a site design concept that includes pages, content, organization, navigation, user interface and usability. Parameters are usually thought of as constants...thus we are looking to identify and state guiding goals which are constant factors in the design process. These include challenges and opportunities such as:
If you're a consultant, your client is certain to make it something like "I want it to load in 3 seconds, add five graphics and still load in 3 seconds. You want to carefully state measurable standards for assessing the results of your design concept and to guide the creation of all the parts of the site plan and its contents. Setting parameters before designing and then measuring against them after opening for eBusiness allows you to rate your degree of success and to see what needs fixing. Explore the meaning of "parameters": http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ Below are some common design parameters or guiding, constant design goals:
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Step 6 - Specific Site Functions Most of you will be within the category of eCommerce but might also have another general activity such as Auction Selling, or Advertising and promoting your products. You could list specific purposes or objectives for having a Web Site. Consider the following:
Let's look at some examples from the Bay Area that successfully use a Web site for commercial purposes. |
| Local entrepreneur Rick Tracewell started out on the Internet by creating a searchable database of real estate listings complete with 3D viewable tours. He then began TNT Media (now Tracewell Media) as an online Web consultant. He landed the Raiders and individual sports figures like Jason Kidd which led to his firm being merged with iKala in early 2000. http://www.tracewellmedia.com/ or http://www.tntmedia.com/ | |
| Ben Rodrigue used to work for Plantronics, quit and took a job as a sales rep for Quaggia, a main distributer of Plantronics products and then decided to to start his own business as a distributor and sales rep rather than working as a commission employee for a vendor. He work from his homevia telephone sales then built his first eCommerce website in 2005 using GoDaddy, a webpage building system. In 2006 he upgraded his eCommerce solution by switching to osCommerce, a better eCommerce web building system. Go Headsets.com | |
| A premiere local attraction is the Fort Mason Foundation created to administer and develop a unique cultural, educational, and recreational center in partnership with the National Park Service. Fort Mason Center offers a variety of activities at minimum or no cost, suitable for all ages and interests. This former military base offers the opportunity to experience diversity focusing on the visual and performing arts, humanities, education, ecology, and recreation. A National Historic Landmark and part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the Center houses nearly fifty nonprofit organizations and is the setting for more than 15,000 meetings, conferences, performances, and special events, attended by 1.5 million visitors each year. http://www.fortmason.org | |
| After 22 years, Scott Sway moved his outdoor equipment company onto the Web as a digital catalog business. Sales doubled in less than two years and his work force went from 12 to 26 employees. He markets exclusively via search engines. http://www.northernmountain.com/ | |
| Growing Up in Santa Cruz is a free newspaper serving families and local businesses in Santa Cruz County. http://www.growing-up.com/ (source: SF Chronicle) | |
| A 50-employee, 12 year old San Francisco advertising/public relations agency uses the Web to send its creative work to clients and to post all invoices, ads and PR materials. (source: SF Chronicle) | |
| For recreation, try http://discgolf.com/ http://www.pdga.com/ | |
| Like seafood? Like to BBQ for 50? Like steaks by-the-crateful? Try Prime Selection run by (Mr. to you) Boulder, an independent contractor from San Jose. He delivers. http://www.eprimecuts.com | |
| Need to relax? Try ZEN (really) at http://www.do-not-zzz.com/ | |
| In the mood for a laugh. Choose your joke by subject at HA! http://www.hardyharhar.com/ Subscribe to their mailing list and have new jokes delivered. Buy a t-shirt. |
The message in all this is basic and simple: Before you create the Web presence and before you plan and before you design and before you spend money and time, have goals and plans. Of course, you can set up a Web site for non-commercial purposes such as promoting ideas, supporting political messages, religious considerations, internal communications, or any other passion you may have. Most of the ideas in this course will apply well to the creation of a non-commercial site. |
eCommerce Cataloging - Most of us want to engage in selling online, probably retail. This usually means displaying a catalog of our products. The following is a chart comparing paper catalogs to Online (digital) catalogs.
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