Web Design: DO-IT-YOURSELF WEB SITES: THE PROS AND CONS

DO-IT-YOURSELF WEB SITES: THE PROS AND CONS

Written by Tim North

Not sure what's involved in getting a web site started? Well, there are really only three ways to go about it. In this article, I'll provide an objective review of repparttar

strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

(a) The DIY solution: Create and maintain your web site yourself by using software such as Microsoft FrontPage or by writing repparttar 134658 HTML directly.

(b) The half-n-half solution: Have an external party create repparttar 134659 web site. You then do repparttar 134660 regular updating of repparttar 134661 site yourself.

(a) THE DIY SOLUTION

ADVANTAGES * This is repparttar 134663 cheapest solution. You don't need to pay any fees to consultants. * If you enjoy being creative this could be an enjoyable and rewarding activity. * You'll have complete control over your web site's "look and feel." * There's no chance of a consultant handing you a site that isn't what you wanted.

DISADVANTAGES * DIY sites often look amateurish. This can turn away customers. * DIY sites often have poor navigation controls. In a well-designed site, repparttar 134664 user should be able to find what they want in seconds. Achieving this is not as easy as it sounds. * You'll need to obtain some suitable software and then spend time learning how to use it -- perhaps a lot of time. * You will need to learn repparttar 134665 arcane secrets of effective META tags, JPEG compression, browser compatibility, FTP clients, loading speed and more if you want repparttar 134666 site to perform well.

SKILLS NEEDED * Patience: This will all take time. * Good PC skills; e.g. a familiarity with both text and graphics applications. * Technical skills or repparttar 134667 willingness to acquire them. * Graphic design and page-layout skills.

(b) THE HALF-N-HALF SOLUTION

ADVANTAGES * You'll need far less technical knowledge. * The graphic design, page layout and navigation elements of repparttar 134668 site will all be done for you thus avoiding many of repparttar 134669 pitfalls that strike amateur designs. * A consultant will probably produce repparttar 134670 site faster than you can. * If you have repparttar 134671 skills (and repparttar 134672 desire) to update repparttar 134673 site yourself, this may be repparttar 134674 best trade-off between price, speed and professionality.

How Active is Inter-Active?

Written by Stefene Russell

"Interactive," like "post-modern," is an impressive word, though no one precisely knows what it means. This can be confusing--not to mention annoying-but repparttar

lack of a clear definition provides a good launching point for brainstorming.

We'll leave "post-modern" to repparttar 134657 Derrida theorists. What does interactive mean, then? Let's break it down into components: "inter," means through (a relationship is established between two objects) and "active," means it actually does something. Using this definition, a simple email form becomes "interactive." The user acts upon repparttar 134658 form, and repparttar 134659 form sends mail. Simply put, it's repparttar 134660 cyber version of conversation: exchange in all its forms. You just want repparttar 134661 user to leave feeling as if they received something, whether that is a return email, a bit of trivia, or a slideshow.

Most of us (including myself) are used to thinking of "interactive" as a Rube Goldberg whiz-bang collection of interactive flash features or auto-checking radial-dot forms that are smarter than we are. Of course, this causes us to push repparttar 134662 concept of "interactive," out of our heads, because it sounds too complicated to be bothered with. But believe me, it's worth pondering (and implementing) at least a few interactive features.

Here's a short list of ways to make your site more interactive without drastically increasing download times, or giving yourself a migraine as you attempt to decipher a complicated audio/video/bell and whistle software package.

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