Website Madness

A post Tony did on arts websites (and why many of them are bad) is a perfect springboard to discuss my day job's new site.  There are some lesson we took from building it that could prove helpful to you.  Here are a few . . .

1.  Our old website had a lot of problems, it was ugly, didn't represent our "brand", etc.  But that wasn't the biggest problem.  The biggest problem was that it was too damn hard to update.

To do something as simple as add show reviews and links to the old site took entirely too long.

So my first (and most important) piece of website advice to you is . . . build a site that is easy to update and then update it regularly.

Now I understand that often in web world if you want your site to be easy to update it can't be too visually appealing.  The only reason that our new website both looks nice and is easy to update is because we had the money to pay for both things. 

If you don't, then make sure the site is easy to update, even if it costs you some visual appeal.

2.  Websites are marketing turf.  In an arts organization there are a lot of interests to be served, the artists, the artistic leadership, fundraisers, education folks, you get the idea.

The problem is that if you allow too much input from these groups, then you end up with a disjointed website that looks like, to quote my mother, "a hot mess."

The hardest part of getting our new website built was going to some pretty powerful people in the organization and saying . . . this is how the site is going to look, period. 

Sure, there was plenty of time spent on building consensus and I think the ultimate product is something everyone was happy with but ultimately it was marketing's call about how the website functioned . . . which leads me to point 3

3.  Websites are about the audience.  So if a dancer loves the website because it has cool photos of him, but the person buying tickets to see said dancer HATES the website then you have a problem.

In the development of our website I had an easy job, it was to look at the site and constantly ask the question "if I were a patron, would I like this feature of the website or hate it?"

You are not doing a website to demonstrate your coolness, tech savvy or any other form of ego stroking.  You are doing a website so that the people who support (or want to support) what you do have a place to get info.

4.  Invest in your website.  I'm not saying you have to spent what we did (tens of thousands) or take as long as we did to get it up (months) but don't get all cheap about your website.  Yes there are pretty of free applications that can improve your site, but sometimes you get what you pay for.  A dollar spent wisely on your website can go a long way.

 

Comments

[Tony]

I concur. With one small caveat: with most CMS's it is very easy to update regularly and keep it visually appealing. (as they separate the look from the content. ie the info can change without the template changing.

The initial setup and design can take a bit longer, but far easier to use in the long run.

[Brian]

Like Tony said, there are plenty of content management systems (CMS) that allow ease of update without losing that visual appeal. Some of those CMS's include Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal.

I am a web designer by day, and I'm working on some templates that I can use to help out various theatres in the Chicago area (and heck, why stop there? the world!) with all of the issues that you described above.

My portfolio (as well as contact info) is here:

ttp://tr.im/hN9b (or brianseitel.com)

I'd be happy to talk to various theatre companies about website and their needs and see if we can come to an agreement on a better, affordable web presence for them.

[Paul]

I believe that the kids are calling it "a white-hot tranny mess" these days. Just for your records.

I'll echo what others have said: Drupal and Joomla are an org's best friend, if you can dedicate one person to learn the interface... and this investment in IT information pays for itself in the long-term.

And everyone forgets Point 3. It should sorta be stapled to every webmaster's head, along with a photo of the 1999 Pets.com website and how unhelpful it was.