News: Focused Facts Key to Web Presence

08/02/1999- Daily Hampshire Gazette

Kevin Russell, co-owner of a company that develops Web sites for businesses, puts his finger on one of the paradoxes presented by the World Wide Web. "In the information age," says Russell, "the last thing people need is information they don't need."

One key to creating an effective Web site, says Russell, who co-owns Right Angle Associates with programmer and software developer Kelly Meeks, is knowing what information to leave out.

Beverly Woolf, a research associate professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts, says the World Wide Web has spawned millions and millions of publishers, but not yet enough editors.

That's where professional Web site designers and developers enter the picture.

Almost anyone can create a Web page, using off-the-shelf software that is readily available. But to make a good, efficient and useful one is another matter, they say.

Effective Web pages combine principles of design with programs that allow the user to act on information in the site and to research data bases - programs that are usually most effective when custom made, they say.

The World Wide Web was conceived 10 years ago by scientists as a communications tool allowing researchers to exchange volumes of technical data. In the last few years, it has burgeoned into a global exchange of information of every conceivable hue. It's the fastest growing facet of the global communications system called the Internet.

"The Web" technically is defined as a global system of on-line documents interlinked through a simple graphic, or "mark-up," language called hypertext, or HTML, although this definition will itself be in need of an upgrade before long.

There is a growing list of specialized computer programs - the most talked about being e-commerce or shopping programs - that can be built into Web sites to make them more functional and "interactive."

A new mark-up language, called XML, for "extended mark-up language," will soon be in widespread use, predicts Woolf.

Websites to databases, effectively packing more knowledge behind each linking word or "button" on a Web page.

Meanwhile, the accumulated storehouse of information on millions of Web sites worldwide, is so enormous, and growing so fast, that a big challenge for professional Web site designers like Russell is how to limit, narrow and focus information.

In giddy response to the explosive availability of so much information, many early "get-it-all" Web pages offered buckets of information.

But these sites quickly became hopelessly "clogged," in the words of Jeff Potter of Shelburne Falls, an editor and, print designer who does Web site design and writes on World Wide Web trends.

Designers quickly came to realize people don't have time to deal with the information.

The chief aim of designers nowadays, Potter, Russell and others agree, is to help users zero in on the select packages of information they want or need.

Russell says he and Meeks have had to train some corporate customers to think in a new way about the kinds and amounts of information they put out about their firms.

They advise clients not to weigh down their Web sites by loading on the company catalogue and to leave out the corporate "mission statement." People simply don't care what the mission is, Russell says.

Woolf predicts that "banner" advertising on Web pages will be gradually phased out, because these ads tend to clutter a page and more often annoy rather than entice users, who seem to be avoiding them. "Click rates" on banner ads have fallen way off, she says.

Simplicity, clarity, efficiency and interactivity are code words for designers of Web pages these days.

Pages that "look great" but, "like that old ad said of Miller High Life, are less filling" are the goal, says Potter.

Fortunately, says Potter, "there are more and more tricks and tools available to help maximize the quality of the can be."

A file is defined as a unit of information or a software program, and it is quantitatively measured in terms of kilobytes.

The goal is to make each file as small as possible, because the smaller the file the faster it can be downloaded into the computer, explains Jason Mark, the president of Gravity Switch, a Northampton multimedia firm, half of whose business is in Web page design. That's up from 20 to 30 percent a few years ago.

"Compression" of audio and graphic flies is an important part of building a Web site, says Mark. One of the most challenging projects for him recently was creating a Web site for Conway-based Manchester Music Library which licenses music clips, or "needledrops," to corporations, broadcasters, advertisers and entertainment and media companies.

One tricky part was squeezing the files for sound clip samples without losing quality. In this case, business owner John Manchester, to save money, did the compressing of the files himself based on a technique worked out by the company. He happened to have the equipment to do so.

The Web page designer is constantly faced with having to balance graphic quality and speed of downloading. Speed in some respects is the more important value, for users of the Web are notoriously impatient. Russell's rule of thumb is that Web site hosts have 12 seconds to hook in the user.

"I think that's generous," says Potter.

The sophistication of the user's computer equipment is clearly a factor in how fast files download. Many designers use software that allows for "streaming" of data, which means that information can be read (or seen or heard) while the file is downloading.

A trade-off between graphic and audio quality is unavoidable. One is sacrificed to gain the other.

Where the balance lies for any one Web site depends on the strategic needs and goals of the Web site sponsor, notes Mark.

For those selling art or craft products, such as Shelburne Falls based glassmaker Josh Simpson, another client of Gravity Switch, having quality graphics is worth paying for with a longer downloading time.

As a rule of thumb, because graphics are so time-intensive, "pictures should take a back seat to text," says Victoria White, in an essay on qualities that distinguish good from bad Web pages that she has included in the Web site of eclecTech, her Internet consulting and Web development firm.

At least three of the elements mentioned in this same essay refer to the importance of the overall structure of a Web site - what the experts call the "topology" of the site. "Logical organization"' to make "convenient and speedy navigation" possible is of paramount importance, according to White.

It is important that the user easily understand the logic of links within a site - or between sites - and how each page within a site relates to the site as a whole.

"The more thought that is put into that, the easier the Web site will be to use," says Potter.

Some designers and developers like to use the metaphor of a tree to help them and their clients think about organization of a Web site.

Mark and Russell prefer the metaphor of architecture, finding it helpful to talk with their clients in terms of what rooms will be contained in the house, and how one gets from room to room.