Best Before...
by Heather Champ
While so much time is spent determining the short-term, immediate launch solution for a site, it's possible that the myopic vision that this creates can take away from looking at the larger picture. This larger picture is crucial in that it, along with the short-term decisions, can make or break the longevity and success of a site. To hack a well-known phrase, "it's the content stupid."What is the freshness cycle for the Web? Typically, successful ads can linger in broadcast land for up to six months. Print has a much shorter cycle with ads changing within a three-month period. Web sites that incorporate daily, weekly, or regular updates will suggest a solution as the content freshness is inherent in the design. But even while the content changes there is a strong urge to change the "wallpaper" on a somewhat regular basis. Larger sites seem to change, sometimes rather dramatically, the wallpaper or rather the look and feel somewhere between four to six months.
Microsoft undertook a number of serious overhauls of their online presence last year. The changes were rather dramatic and left developers and designers with a handful of 404 links as the content was retooled into a new form. If changes are such that users will be lost, it's wise to include, if only for a short period of time, a site map with some explanation as to where to find information in its new location. It's better to bridge the changes to ensure continued traffic to your site.
Hotwired changes the background on a weekly rotation between a palette of four bright colors. This very simple change refreshes the look and feel easily. The front door introduces a new snappy graphic or animation that lures the user inside.
Word has a rotating series of "happy face icons" within a standard L-shaped frame of icons. New stories are introduced with large graphic elements, which are then trickled down until the point at which they are archived within several sections in the site. The changing content updates the look of the site on a regular basis.
Other Thoughts
- Design is more than the pleasant arrangement of pixels on a page. A good visual design is supported by a well-designed architecture. This is very important if someone other than yourself or your team will be facilitating the updates. Adding in tags like <!-- your comments here-> will provide a useful guide to those who may be unfamiliar with the workings of the site.
- Directory structures. Arrange all "like" elements with their own directories such as "images," etc. This makes it easier to weed out what becomes unnecessary. Many times information is added, and that which is not archived can sit around on the server only taking up space. Initially, this may not be a problem, but down the road if resources are scarce, the space that they may take up could be recycled.
- Give some thought on how older information will be archived. Though not the freshest, some information can be very valuable to a user, and it's important that a streamlined solution is thought of at the outset.
