Web Poynor

What we dotop

We create custom Web site projects, providing a full range of e-Commerce, database, content development, and graphic services. Our sites attract attention, add value, and set our customer's messages apart from their competition.

Who we aretop

Hugh Poynor taught e-Commerce at the University of Texas at Austin for five years and has over 40 years in software development and management experience. Lee Poynor provides communication, content development, information flow, and graphic design for our projects.

How we do ittop

We have the skills, the technical solutions and experience to create an effective site that meets your unique needs. Unlike many developers, we work from your requirements forward, rather than trying to retrofit a general-purpose system to meet your needs. Please contact us to discuss your project and learn what we can do for you.

Design

Web design encompasses many different disciplines. They are interface layout design, user experience design (especially information architecture and navigation), content editing for web-style writing, graphics, software tool selection, search engine optimization and promotion planning.

It is impossible to begin web design without the content already written and firm agreement about what the website will do (its objectives). Let's begin web design with project objectives.

In addition to the information here, we have written four design chapters for our online college course in web development in which you may be interested:

• 33. Web Designed Defined
• 34. Business of Web Design
• 35. Page and Site Design
• 36. Web Design Samples

Design Objectives top

• Provide an online sales revenue channel
• Heighten awareness of company and mission
• Shape the company/product image
• Influence opinion and distribute news
• Enhance company/product loyalty
• Describe services and how to obtain them
• Increase brand, model, features, and size awareness
• Provide information and referral among partners
• Alert supply and manufacturing partners of your orders
• Inform prospective customers of accurate manufacturing schedules
• Direct customers to nearby outlets for in-store shopping
• Reach an audience for market research surveys
• Create a platform for launching new products
• Reduce expense of customer service
• Increase services without increasing costs
• Provide a clearinghouse for sharing common information
• Gather information through online questionnaires
• Administer tests
• Entertain with music and videos

Design Tasks top

• Specify concrete objectives for the Web site
• Describe what the site does, and write an 'About us' page
• Identify what visitors (a) want and (b) expect from the site
• Organize and refine page content around (a) & (b) above
• Refresh content to give visitors a reason to return
• Structure pages that support a clearly organized site
• Help readers find information quickly and easily
• Make sure nothing important is more than 2-clicks away
• Work on appearance after finalizing and structuring content
• Appearance will please visitors, but they stay for your content
• Strive for coherence and consistency
• Build search engine hot spots: title, headings, and link tags

Web Writing top

• Speak the intended visitor's language
• Be direct—use the second person, active voice (the "you" voice)
• Expect visitors to scan, not read
• Get organized, write clearly, be brief
• Use an inverted pyramid structure: put conclusions first
• Don't dilute information by saying too much
• Use half the words you would on paper
• Omit needless words
• Closely follow accepted rules of writing
• Use meaningful headings frequently
• Write, rewrite, and spell check