Slide 1:
Hello again and welcome to COM 333, “Communicating Through Internet” – this, Lecture 13, “Effective Web Page Design”.

Slide 2:
Well, I think it was, who was it, someone in the Wizard of Oz, said, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore”.  Well, we’re not on paper anymore, in this form of communication.  Really, the World Wide Web, of course, as we know, is a computer-based form of communication.  It really is a new medium, just like television, and radio, and print were previous media, this now a new medium, which, in fact, combines other media together.  And it includes text, much like newspapers, and magazines, and print publications.  It also has audio, just as you are listening to me now, like radio.  It has video, like television, but also like videotape in that it can be viewed again and again, and at different times, and it’s interactive.  And in that respect, this medium is more like face-to-face.  It allows the receiver of the communication to give feedback and get an instant reply based on that feedback.  So this medium is significantly different than the radio, and television, and newspapers, and magazines that we’ve studied for so many years.  Of course, this medium at this point uses a screen to display much of the material and speakers to provide audio information.  That screen has higher resolution than standard television does.  In fact, the screen that we’re using now in computers is entirely analogous to HDTV, that High-Definition Television that we’ve been hearing so much about.

Slide 3:
Well, I might stir up a bit of controversy and so, hear me through on this one statement.  That is, that the World Wide Web is not art.  And by that I mean, the web is a communication medium.  It’s not just doing your thing.  The web is not just a personal expression; rather, generally one uses the web with a rationale.  You should have a reason for what you’re communicating.  You should know what responses you intend to achieve in those who view your pages and listen to your pages.  And you should be able to assess if your World Wide Web pages work; that is, if they achieve the goals, the objectives, if they communicate the messages that you intend.  And so, of course, many artists do in fact plan their artwork for that purpose.  That is, to elicit a certain response.  But not all artists do that – rather, it is a matter of a more of an emotional self-expression.  When one looks at the web and approaches it as a communication medium, we do take a different approach than that.  The approach that we take is we try to identify our audience; we try to establish our objectives.  And then we want to see whether we’ve achieved those ends.

Slide 4:
Well, web communication begins with planning, and with every web page, it should be apparent to us, as we visit web pages, that the author of the page had identified an intended audience.  And if you develop web pages, although not a requirement for this class, but many of you I’m sure have and will develop web pages, you should begin with these kinds of considerations.  Begin by visualizing your audience.  Who is it that you intend to reach?  What is the age or age range?  Is one gender more predominant in your intended audience than another?  What about the educational background?  And, you see, each of these elements are going to be important as we move through them because it will help you define how best to communicate to those individuals.  So educational background may affect vocabulary that you use, certain kinds of jargon, or other aspects of your communication.  And the same is true with social or cultural background.  Income and economic background may be important as you prepare your objectives.  Certain economic groups, and I’m not in that group, may be ones that may want to purchase a BMW or a Mercedes -- so you really have to identify if you’re aiming at a group more by income -- you’re not going to try to sell those very expensive cars.  And so that may be important as you develop your web page.  And there’s other demographic information that may be relevant, and it can vary from case to case.

Slide 5:
Well, as you develop your plan, you should determine objectives and as we look at those objectives I tend to put those in behavioral terms; that is, what behaviors do you intend that those persons who visit your page to exhibit after they’ve visited the page.  Now, they don’t just have to be actions, they could be cognitive; that is, what is it that you want them to be thinking about after they’ve left the page?  Do you want to change their attitude on a political issue, on a social issue?  Or perhaps you’re looking for a more kinetic type response; that is, that they should go out and mow their lawn.  That they should do something of the sort, you know, or that they should say something, that they should contact their representatives and lobby the representatives in support of some political or social issue.  It’s almost equally important, almost equally as important, that you determine a way that you can judge whether these outcomes have been achieved, because of the process of developing a web page is an ongoing process, so you develop a first version, you test it out and see if you’ve accomplished the outcomes, and then make minor adjustments, or major adjustments, and then test those outcomes again.

Slide 6:
Well, messages are different than objectives.  When I talk about messages, which are again an important part of a communication plan, I’m talking about phrases, or slogans, or facts that you want those visiting the page to remember.  One example might be the kind of jingle that you hear on radio or see on television that sticks in the back of your mind and irritates you through the day, or perhaps doesn’t irritate you -- but, in any event, a jingle that plays over and over in your mind.  Or it might be a candidate’s position or a part of a platform for a political candidate.  And those kinds of messages are important to identify before you begin writing your web page, before you begin putting that page together.  And again, these messages should be the kinds of messages that can be measurable via post test -- by post test, I mean one could test individuals about a candidate’s position, or about a product, or whatever, after they have viewed the page and see if that message has in fact stuck in their mind.

Slide 7:
Well, now that one has a plan in place, one presumably knows one’s audience and so from that knowledge you can determine what music appeals to that audience.  You see, for example, there’s a group, I understand, by the name of The Smashing Pumpkins.  Well, I don’t know anything about the group and I’m not sure that they will appeal to me as well as perhaps Simon and Garfunkel, o.k., but in that regard, you see that there’s an age-based experience, or an age-based orientation toward a certain kind of music.  And you may be able to use that music to reinforce your messages.  The same is true about designs, or about language, or slang, or vernacular that is used by a particular group.  Now, you also, of course, should be well familiar with your objectives in the outcomes and the messages that you intend.  Armed with that information, one goes about designing the most effective structure for a web page; that is, incorporating images and audio, or perhaps moving images, perhaps motion.  And you should have the best path to achieve the desired information so that when a person visits a page they can almost intuitively find the information they want, very quickly, without much searching through your website.

Slide 8:
Every aspect of web page development is (1) based on the knowledge of the audience, and (2) directed toward the objectives for this communication.  So, your design should be as is indicated, intuitive, should be easy to navigate the first time, and it should be memorable, it should be easy to remember, so that when those persons visit your web site they can come back and easily repeat that process to reinforce the message or to get more information.

Slide 9:
Well, the Web is in fact a communication medium and we apply the same principles that we’ve applied for decades and centuries, in fact, in the print medium and more recently in radio, and television, and cable, and other recorded communication.  It’s a complex medium, which combines other media together and it allows that interaction, and that can be a very important part of the process.  You can provide rapid feedback to the viewer - to the visitor - and so it has a potential to become a very potent tool in the communication realm.  Well, visit the discussion board this week.  We’ll have you take a look at some web pages, and perhaps you’ll see them a bit differently then you did, in fact, even last week.  And we’ll look forward to seeing you on the ‘net.