How to Develop

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How to Develop Your online audience An overview
of current web trends and issues
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Some points to consider before creating or
updating your website

• What information is most useful to your audience?
• How will you update information on the website?
• Are you making your website accessible to the
  visually impaired and people with learning
  difficulties?
• Do you have a clear strategy for your website?
• Have you considered your website in your overall
  marketing strategy?

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CASE STUDY City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
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• Case Study
• The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a
  good example of an accessible and user-friendly
  website. ( see hyperlink below )

www.cbso.co.uk
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• The homepage informs the user about various
  features on the site.
• A useful calendar feature
• enables the user to quickly find events on a
  particular date.
• An email subscription form enables the venue to
  contact users about new events and enables CBSO
  to email market.
• The overall design is clear and the navigation is
  simple to understand and use.

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• Accessibility has been carefully considered with
  a variety of useful features for the visually
  impaired and people with learning difficulties.
• Alt tags have been used.
• ( see Man playing Violin on top right of image
  )
• Please note, an alt(ernative) text tag enables
  Screen Readers to read screen elements such as
  imagery, which would otherwise be unrecognisable
  to the visually impaired.

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• The CBSO website has included a very useful Text
  Size option. By clicking on the L option,
  users can see an enlarged text version of the
  website.

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• We can see that the text size has increased
  significantly, enabling the visually impaired to
  read page content more easily.
• Please note that the menu text on the left hand
  side has also increased in size.
• Graphical menus look aesthetically pleasing,
  however they are not very accessible to the
  visually impaired and should be avoided.

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• Its important that text can change size, instead
  of being fixed to e.g. 10point
• A good way to test if your website text can
  change size is by going to View gt Text Size gt
  Largest.

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USEABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY
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• Useability and accessibility
• Useability can be tested via observing people as
  they complete certain tasks on your website (i.e.
  finding event information, contacting the venue
  via email etc
• Any difficulties in using the website will soon
  become apparent and further amendments to the
  website can be applied. It is important to get as
  many testers as possible
• ( preferably 5 ).
• Resist making changes to a website based on one
  persons feedback, or the personal tastes of one
  person.
• Many organisations have increased their ticket
  sales through careful consideration of their
  website.

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• Some useability points to look out for
• Clear navigation, which is consistent throughout
  the site.
• Use a system for navigation links that is clear
  and simple to use
• Use language and terminology that is
  customer-friendly, try to avoid using jargon.
• Readable text and font sizes can be made larger
  or smaller as per the users wishes.
• Clear title on each page should identify where
  the user is.
• Headings and sub-headings are clearly
  distinguished.
• Important content should be placed near the top
  of the screen.

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• Accessibility can be evaluated and tested using a
  variety of methods
• the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act )requires
  that you make what it refers to as reasonable
  adjustments, to your services to ensure that a
  person with a disability can access that service
  (More information available at http//www.rnib.co.
  uk). Ask a variety of people with differing
  degrees of disability to test your website, and
  then provide you with feedback.
• Use online validating tools such as Bobby
  http//bobby.watchfire.com from Watchfire and the
  W3C markup validation service http//validator.w3.
  org
• Test your site with a screen reader such as IBMs
  Homepage reader. ( Free 30 day trial available )
• http//www-3.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.h
  tml .

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• The RNIB website features a web access centre,
  which provides useful articles and a checklist
  for accessible website features.
• http//www.rnib.org.uk
• The website also contains detailed information on
  the DDA ( Disability Discrimination Act )

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MANAGING YOUR WEBSITE
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• Managing your website content
• Its useful to think of your website content in
  terms of what websites you visit and why. Is
  there a particular website that you visit that
  informs, enlightens and entertains you? If there
  is, try to pinpoint where theyve succeeded and
  measure your website against it.
• Some points to consider
• Who is responsible for gathering content for the
  website?
• Be concise
• Write for the web, not print.
• Users scan web pages for interesting content. Use
  headlines to grab their attention.

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• Managing your website content continued
• Use short paragraphs
• Long lines of text make it difficult for the user
  to find the next line of text. Shorten the width
  of your content to solve this problem.
• Where possible employ a content management system
  (CMS). This allows virtually any member of your
  organisation to update website content with a web
  browser and a simple editor. CMS systems have
  dropped in price over recent years.
• Plan ahead. Can your website develop over time
  with your existing navigation?
• How frequently must your content be updated?
• Allow time for planning, writing and implementing
  content.

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MARKETING YOUR WEBSITE
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• Marketing How will people find my website?
• 85 of Internet users use search engines to find
  suppliers and products.
• Search Engines are the most common way to locate
  a particular topic, organisation or event on the
  internet.
• Some of the most popular search engines include
• Yahoo!
• Google
• MSN
• AltaVista
• www.ineedhits.com run several services at
  competitive rates that will optimise and submit
  your website to various search engines across the
  world.

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• Email Marketing Enabling targeted offers
• Email marketing has become an increasingly
  popular way to contact, inform and subsequently
  market your services online. Permission based
  email marketing has become the ideal way to do
  this without running into the contentious area of
  Spam.
• Permission based marketing requires the user to
  actively request a subscription to your
  newsletter, rather than sending it to a large
  mailing list of random emails across e.g. the
  U.K. and Ireland.
• This essentially safeguards your organisation
  against accusations of spamming.

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• Email Marketing What to look for in your
  software.
• Ability to connect to other databases
• Template systems for creating HTML emails
• Ability to upload HTML email created in external
  software
• Wysiwyg ( What you see is what you get) system
  for creating HTML emails plus Plain Text
  alternatives
• Email Preview and tracking results ( e.g. how
  many people visited your offer. )
• Mail Merge
• List filtering and cleaning list data

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• Email Marketing What to look for in your
  software.
• Ease of Use
• Is there a user guide?
• Is training included?
• Is there support?
• What skill levels are required to use the system?

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• Email Marketing What to look for in your
  software.
• Cost comparison
• Have you factored in costs for support?
• Cost for software licence
• Cost per email ( some systems use a cost per
  email model )
• Cost for software and additional training

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• Marketing Other ways to attract people to your
  website
• Link Exchanges
• Use space on your website to promote another
  organisation, event or service. Ask them to place
  your banner ad or link on their website in
  exchange.
• Banner Advertising
• A popular way of advertising on the web. Ask your
  web developer / designer to create a series of ad
  banners for your organisation.
• Email a Friend
• The internet equivalent of the age old word of
  mouth. This enables your website visitors to
  market your website for you.

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ECOMMERCE Reassuring the customer
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• E-Commerce Selling online
• Think of your customer. What do they want to find
  out before buying the ticket? i.e. What seats are
  available?
• If possible incorporate a seating plan to
  illustrate where they will be sitting.
• Reassure your customer that any information they
  give to you will be confidential and wont be
  passed on to any third party who could misuse
  that information.
• Your organisation ideally require an e-commerce
  system that is robust and secure, yet simple for
  your customers. A bad ecommerce experience can
  have a negative impact on your website.

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• E-Commerce Selling online
• It sounds simple, but do your homework. What
  ecommerce sites have you been to that provided a
  clear, helpful and reassuring booking system?
• Use these websites where possible to inspire your
  organisations booking system and to inform the
  website developers what you expect from your
  organisations ecommerce system.
• Remember its better to have a clear indication
  of what features you want in your website, rather
  than leave it to your website developers to
  second guess.
• Try to capture information on each client for
  future e-marketing ( promotional email offers
  etc). For example, what kind of shows theyre
  interested in, where they live, email address
  etc.

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• Well look briefly at the
• E-Commerce system on the CBSO website.
• The CBSO booking system provides a summary of
  the performances, including
• Date
• Time
• Location
• Phone Number
• Conductor
• Composer
• Brief synopsis of performance to inform viewer

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• If the user clicks book now, they are taken to
  a web page where they can choose their ticket
  price.
• There is also a useful seating plan link, which
  opens a pop-up window of the concert hall.

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• The user is then asked to choose how many tickets
  they would like to buy.
• The user is then prompted to reserve their
  ticket to continue.

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• The CBSO website now informs the user that they
  are now connected via a secure web link. A clear
  indication of this is that the web address of
  this page should start with the prefix https

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• You will also notice a padlock symbol on the
  bottom of your websites status bar.
• This also indicates a secure web page.
• Once completed, reassure the user that they have
  been successful in buying their tickets.
• Send them confirmation via email that they will
  receive their tickets etc

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INFORMING YOUR WEB DEVELOPER / DESIGNER
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• Informing your web designer / developer
• Before giving a green light to the development of
  a website, it is important to create a brief that
  highlights what you want to achieve with the
  website.
• This brief should enable the web developer to
  create the first version of a website draft
  without too much input from you.
• The brief should be approved by your
  organisations senior management before being
  handed to the developer. Where possible try to
  deliver a complete picture of the website to the
  developer.
• This encourages completion of the website within
  time and budget. Further additions to the project
  brief often result in delays and further costs to
  your organisation

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• Informing your website developer / designer -
  continued
• The brief should contain a site map of the
  structure of the proposed website. The sitemap (
  see diagram on next screen ) shows each page and
  its relationship to other pages within the
  website.
• Functionality within each page should be
  identified. ( i.e. Contact form and location map
  for a Contact Us page )
• Be as clear and concise as possible so that the
  developer understands what you hope to achieve in
  each section.
• Building a website is a collaborative process.
  Build a healthy working relationship with your
  developer and stay in contact throughout the
  development cycle of the project.
• Ask your developer to show you updates each week
  where possible

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Measuring the effectiveness of your website
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• Measuring the effectiveness of your website
• Analysis of the web server that hosts your
  website data is used to track usage of the site.
  Ensure that you have access to this data via your
  web developer or hosting package.
• Evaluate the success of your website through the
  number of visitors, or page impressions. The
  number of page hits is largely irrelevant as
  pages with more images get more hits per user.
• Has there been an increase in ticket sales or
  enquiries via the website.
• Improve the number of new and repeat visitors.
  Repeat visitors indicate that your website
  content is attracting and retaining an online
  audience.

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APPENDIXES
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APPENDIXES How the web works The World Wide
Web allows rich and diverse communication by
displaying text, graphics, animation, photos,
sound and video. So how does this modern day
invention work? The Web physically consists of
your personal computer, web browser software (
e.g. Internet Explorer ), a connection to an ISP
( e.g. NTL Broadband ), computers called servers
that host digital data, and routers and switches
to direct the flow of information. The Web is
known as a client-server system. Your computer is
the client the remote computers that store
electronic files are the servers.
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How the web works - continued Let's say you want
to visit the home of Arts Journal website. First
you enter the address or URL of the website in
your web browser ( http//www.artsjournal.com
). Then your browser requests the web page from
the web server that hosts the Arts Journal site.
The server sends the data over the Internet to
your computer. Your web browser interprets the
data, displaying it on your computer screen. To
access the Web you need a web browser, such as
Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet
Explorer. How does your web browser distinguish
between web pages and other types of data on the
Internet? Web pages are written in a computer
language called Hypertext Markup Language or
HTML.
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www.audiencesni.com Proposed website site map
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