Background 

A series of discussions with friends at the Association of PC User Groups has caused me to consider how I would teach someone else to approach the process of designing a web page.  This quandry grew out a realization that the web site contest run by the APCUG is not the educational event that I thought it should be.  That isn't to say that it is not a good thing.  It clearly is a good thing.  And, those that have won recognition in the past and coming up should be honored.  That adds value to all those who volunteer time and effort for the betterment of their clubs.  What I realized in those discussions was this:  Contests are seen as positive by most people.  They can honor people who have given service to their clubs, and more importantly, honor and recognition can be given to the clubs for having useful visibility on the web, and in print.  And, if you are going to use measureable, less subjective criteria, the judging of such events cannot be comprehensive.

Something that can be done, however, is that rational feedback can be given to those participating in the contests that would like it.  But that is not the rule in the contests as currently administered.  Only the winners get feedback that they can then use to promote membership and recognition in their respective communities.  Again, this is not wrong.  It is just not the educational and communicative experience that it could be.  One, I might add, that is more consistent with the published mission of APCUG: "To facilitate communication among computer user groups, the community, and the technology industry."

The first thing that struck me in looking at club web sites for over three hundred user groups, is that there are marked similarities among the majority of the sites.  The second thing that struck me is the range of complexity that sites exhibit.  Clearly, some sites don't change much in relatively long periods of time.  Others are very dynamic, trying new formating tools, managing onsite databases, and tracking all types of activities for SIGS, management of the clubs, newsletters and commercial partners.  A third thing that struck me is that leading members in each club need to determine what they want to do with their web sites, and their newsletters.   For the web sites, journalistic perfection may not a realistic measure if they are dynamic, broadly functioning, and truly fulfilling the needs of their respective clubs.  Having said that, our Front Range PC Users Group web site publishes the k-Byte newsletter in a link prominantly displayed in the Navigation panel.  Apart from the general meeting announcement, we try not to duplicate information.  Therefore, our website would not meet the criteria of the APCUG web site contest, and we should be eliminated from the running.   That, of course, greatly reduces my interest in submitting our site for future competitions.  Apparently, there are other outstanding clubs that have chosen the same route for similar reasons.

So, I've begun to put on "paper" my journey from a passive reader of the FRPCUG web site to a Web Master.  I haven't sought the job, but I did want to update the image of our club, and that is just one of the criteria that I would endorse as valid for a contest criterium, though it is difficult to quantify an "updated image."  Education of all parties in the process of carrying out the mission of APCUG and those varied missions of the many clubs is, or should be, the name of the game.  Devloping quality communication through several different reliable channesl is essential, but never simple.  Communication and successful leadership require significant effort at both ends of the channel.  Pretending simple solutions will meet the needs of over 300 clubs is, well, only simplistic.  It slakes neither the thirst for knowledge and nor the need to share information about leadership or web site designs, the very foundation of the many individual computer user clubs, if not the APCUG.

This states my motivation.  The rest represents my record of a fairly reasoned approach to developing a website, a good bit gleaned from trial and error, but with a singular effort to outline our intentions before fleshing out the actual pages.

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Starting at the Beginning -- A Tutorial

So you want to design a web site, do you?  Web design is so new, and new methodologies are developing so fast that it is difficult to find a comprehensive statement of standards, and any standards are obsolete nearly before they are published.  Though true in previous ages, the rapidity of change poses particular challenges to the novice web designer.  So, the question of how to proceed with a descriptive analysis of approaches to web design is before us.  I would choose to approach this the same way as an architectural design problem, and suggest you consider the same process.  Architects, in attempting space planning, nearly universally follow the these steps:

• Programming: Develop a programs of needs,  determine the criteria that needs to be satisfied to achieve the character, artful presentation and sculptural design. 
• Schematic Design:  Block out the physical relationship of the parts defined in the program, perhaps in several iterations or configurations.
• Design Development:  This step refines the selected schematic into a detailed plan for execution.
• Contract Documents:  The preparation of the Drawings, Specifications, specialized engineering reports and other Conditions to the Contract.  In our web design analogy this step formats the content in a way that is readable by browsers (all of them), and meets the programatic needs.
• The Bidding/Negotiation phase and Contract Administration (the actual building process) follow as practical steps in the architect's contract with the building owner.

This architectural analogy may appear to break down in this last step, however, if you are going to develop a complex cite, you will need to "negotiate" your way through several languages or formatting programs to achieve some of the content of  your site.  Also, were you to contract with a professional website developer, some things in the fourth and fifth steps might well be appropriate for which you'll contract work. 

Website design is about 1.) analysis, 2.) surveying possibilities, 3.) planning for readability and effect,  4.) execution, and 5.) evaluating results.... then returning to the beginning,   You go  back to step 1.), 2.), 3.), 4.), and 5.)... and then...  again, you get the picture.  This is a process which doesn't stop, not if you want to have visitors returning, indexing crawlers keeping tabs of what's new, that is.  The best way to have your site noticed is to continuously improve it, edit and refine text, move body text to its own page as you increase information.  Continuous refinement means that you are elaborating on some points, perhaps moving the topic to its own page, while eliminating other pages.  Your club is dynamic if it is growing and trying new SIGS, adding new service projects, developing new courses in its education program, and inviting new and younger members to participate.  If it is not doing any of these things, you probably do not need a website, or perhaps one page will suffice.

But properly designed, your website, for a dynamic club will allow routine maintenance to be accomplished much more easily, and you won't have to undertake that complete renovation for a long time, perhaps years.  During you stewardship your site content, the colors you use, the pictures and labels, activities and SIGS programs reported, and those dynamic member listings all can be changed and updated easily.  That is to say, once set up, the web site should be edited and tweeked without incurring brain damage.  Certain things, like monthly meeting announcements, calendar adjustments, class schedules and introductions of new members can be accomplished in short order by editing text in a minimum number of files and the results of those file changes can appear in any number of places... automatically, or nearly so.  More about this in good time. 

So, our plan is to do some of the descriptive writing quickly and get something up on the web to establish your presence.  Your presence will be established with a brief description of your club and a meeting, time & place announcement.  Though we have concern that you have the grammar and spelling correct from the start, activities, SIGS, newsletter references, etc. will come later after the initial presence is blocked and formatted.

At this time, it is assumed for the purposes of this development plan, that you have a club name and a domain name.  If you don't have that, stop and get it.  You have to think up the club domain name.  Godaddy.com is one of the cheaper registrars for a domain name, and they are very competent to set up your, website hosted on their site.  This process is not difficult, but would be best completed before moving too much further through this tutorial.  Selection of a domain name and setup of a hosted site is the subject another tutorial which could well be made available at the APCUG site.

First you have to decide what information is to be included in your web site.  We'll develop a list of things that we've included or plan to include in our Club's web site.  The planning process should work with any web site, but we will be focusing on that of a computer users club in this exercise.

Club Web Site needs that you might consider:

• Meeting Announcement
• Description of the Club
• Club Purpose or Mission
• Club Activities
• Newsletter Link/download
• Special Interest Groups (SIGS) and sub-groups
• Commercial Partners
• Membership Information:
• Members Only Area (Secure Area)

•     Offers & discounts to members
•     Member contact list
•     Member identity Photos
•     Board Minutes

• Visitors Sign-In
• Visitors Comments
• Contact Us link/page
• Picture Gallery
• Blog
• Wiki
• Bulletin Board or Web Board
• Email Hosting
• Other (There's always more that you'll think of adding.)

Select a few of these to start with.  Start at the top you this list and use these items as your  paragraph headings.  Fill in everything that you know about your club in complete sentences in a "conversational voice."   Be accurate.  If you are unsure of important information leave a block of white space so that you'll have to come back after checking your facts.  But, get as much down on "paper" at your first sitting, so you feel that you've accomplished something...  It is important that you make progress each time you work on the website.  I'm a firm believer in never staring at a blank piece of paper.  Write something!  Get it down so you can refine it!  You will mold this information like a potter molds clay.  After he gets his clay there is a lot of kneading it, dampening it, reducing it, smashing the air out of it, getting it to the right consistency, all before shaping the clay into a bowl or other useful article.

You must do the same with your words, getting the same voice, verb tense and a meter to your sentences.  Use single point sentences. Avoid long or complex sentences.  Say only what you need ot say and move ot the next item on your short list.  You have 3-6 seconds to say you most important information.   After that most of your audience is gone.  Those that remain are hooked and will be reading more of what you have to say...  so get it down and be prepared to change and improve it. You can always add more, enlarging your site as you progress. 

I'd like to suggest to you a way that I work that helps to minimize the number of times that I type such things as this list.  I'm pretty consistent in working with two screens oppen simultaneously.  One is  a reader, and the other a simple, ascii editor.  That way I can paste my work into a wiki, a web board, a text editor, and I don't carry inappropriate formatting characters with the text in the new location.  I use vim in Linux, but you can use NotePad in Windows to keep your text in ASCII format.

So, if I'm studying this page and taking notes with this exercise my screen might look like this:

If you'll notice in this graphic, I have highlighted and copied the list proposed for this exercise, and pasted it into the editor on the right.  I have further divided the list in to "to do now" and "To do later" subsets.  Then in the editor I started to get stuff on "paper" with typographical errors et al.  You can start blocking the text that you want on your web site.  We'll work on the formatting of the text, backgrounds and clarifying headings after you decide what it is important to say.

Before writing a whole lot, let's start some analysis:

What types of web sites are there?  How do we decide what should be in the site?  How do you determine priorities and what "should" go where?  Well, these questions we'll tackle one at a time and take our cues about these issues as we learn and analyse.  ( Just like an architect would digest the information developed in the program, we want to digest, try on, and test it against our judgement and the client's needs.  What more important client do you know than than you?)  So, let's get started.

Types of sites:  Intuitvely I think that there are many types, but some categories that come to mind are billboards, church programs, catalogs, "yellow pages", blogs, professional services, "the story board", the "magazine," the "comic book," the "parabola," and ....?

• "Billboards" shout:  WE'RE HERE, WE'RE HERE!  COME JOIN US.

• "Church programs" list the offerings of the club's activities rather meekly.   No selling of benefits of participating here...
• "Catalogs" provide endless lists of topics (undeveloped), of officers, of commercial partners, of links, of volunteer activities needing more volunteers.  These can be lifeless and humorless.
• "yellow pages" seem to advertise more than inform.
• "blogs" become the pets of the web master and, though they may represent the views of the club, the reader is never quite sure.
• "professional service" rather dryly offer the redemptive value of a 501c3 group without much humor and little compassion.
• "the story board" is more a choreography of activities  with highly photographed cast of characters doing many good things.
• "the magazine" is a polished page where presentation is paramount... short articles, tightly grouped, colorful and interesting to look at.
• "the comic book" is loaded with cartoons, animated figures, moving and/or flashing texts sprinkled throughout the content.
• "the parabola" is the site where the club is the oldest, with the best of everything, the wildest parties, the most intense meetings, the funniest presenters and the absolutely most incredible dancing girls!  (Not really, I'm just checking to see if you're still with me.)  You get the exagerated and overstated point.

So, herein lie some of the traps you may want to avoid.  The point of this analysis is that balanced reporting with some humor, but not too expansive, is probably the recommended path to take.  A second point might be to represent several of these architypical categories in specific and different parts of your home page.  The intent of doing this is, again, to communicate quickly within three to six seconds how your site is laid out, where and when your meeting occurs and how to find more information, if interested.

Our web site layout has a header which heralds our clubs name and logo, calendars indicating some time sensitivity.  On left panel is a pretty clear indication indication how the site is navigated. And in the right panel a bit of a "headline" about when our meetings occur, what they're about...  and where more information may be found. We have discussions about whether the meeting announcement is the most important information, and where it should go on the page.  I believe that it is the second most important piece of information after the name of the club and motto (which states our purpose).  Navigation is traditionally across the top and/or down the left side of the page.  And we have placed our page content smack in the middle.  Our meeting announcement appears in three places on the site, with each successive view revealing more information. In this way the information can be comprehensive and not overbearing in the first instance of viewing.

Remember, you have three to six seconds to catch the readers interest and for the reader to decide that they'd like more information or will hop to another site...  That is not much time, but if your side has a logical layout, easily and comfortably perused, it will be enough to entice the interested reader's perusal of the information that you'd like to present.  Keep in mind that something has peaked you readers curiosity to get them to your site in the first place, but you must make it clear how to find information that they seek.  How to do that is not cast in stone, and may need some experimentation and viewer tracking in order to find out how viewers regard your site and search for the information that prompted them to enter your web site.

 (Clearly, this is a work in process.)

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