Montgomery College, Maryland

How to Build a Web Site

Where do I learn HTML?  Maricopa Community College HTML Tutorial

First, you must decide what type of site you want to build. 

Organizational-centered Web Site

You can build an organizational web site which promotes, thinks, and speaks like Corporate.  An organization-centered web site is one which:  talks to itself; uses lots of jargon and acronyms;  assumes everyone else knows our acronyms, like ESOL, AELG, AELP, ITI, InTech, OITB, WDCE.  We tend to forget about our audience.  We don't know how to make information accessible, either to the general student population or accessibility for students with disabilities.  We put links "below the fold."  The "Veterans" Page:  We tell our audience, "This page is only for 'veterans' who already know how to use this site, so if you're new here or don't understand this page you must be a future student."  What if there are not just two categories of students, "Future Students and Veterans", but many shades of students [audience segments] (future, first semester, first to college, international with limited language skills, second year but still lost, Honors, Veterans, transfer, wanting to transfer, Adult Learners who want Credit Courses, students with disabilities) We must "segment" our audience, and recognize that people search for information in different ways.

Audience-centered web site

You can build an audience centered web site which still embraces and acknowledges the organization.  This requires that you understand and identify the following terms:  Audienc (including segmented audiences, e.g., "new student" "existing student" "student needing extra help.")  Image.  Happy students, faculty, administrators and staff doing happy things and helping each other.  Message.  What's your message? Who is the best writer in your group?  Who knows your message the best?  Who is going to deliver written material for the site?  Have you surveyed your audience/students on what they would like to see or get out of your site?

Constituencies.  You must identify all the constituencies/audience segments the web site must speak to:  Students first; but also Administrators; Deans, Chairs, faculty, staff, the general public, newspaper reporters, lawyers, copyright services using search algorithms to find copyright violations/plagiarism on web sites, regulators in Annapolis.

Devise ways to speak to and satisfy all these audiences.

Structure

Selecting the correct structure lets all your other objectives fall neatly into place.  Selecting a web site structure which is the "custom and usage in the trade," and has proven itself in many different venues will enable you to get the information to your audience, and get most of it above the fold.  A three-column, four-row web page layout for your Home Page (Level 1) and Main Topics pages (Level 2) is strongly suggested.  Why?  Because such a layout gives you multiple places to put information and links, and provide multiple options for your audience to find and understand the information they are looking for. The structure looks like this in table format:

Remember these concepts! Information goes "above the fold" so people can actually see it!!  Wow! Storyboard in "Landscape," not in "Portrait."  Create a storyboard in Word.doc similar to the table above for use by your non-webbie text and substance abusers preparers. Redundancy/repetition of links and information is a good thing!  Give your users multiple ways to find the same information. 

Don't be the "gatekeeper"

who makes people

go through one door

to find the "right information." 

Be the KeyMaster who gives visitors multiple options to find the information they need.

How to Organize Information.  Try these tips for organizing information: "A Day In a Student's/Visitor's Life."  How will a student/visitor progress through your program?  what are the various steps?  Is there a flow, an organization?

"Products;"  What am I providing/"selling?"  Courses?  Course Sequences?  Degrees?  Certificates?  Faculty Cults? Events? Performances?  Lecture Series?  All of the above?  Can or do students think of these courses/sequences in different ways than we "insiders" do?  Are there key words, phrases, or even "cool slang" that students use to describe various parts of our programs/products/courses/sequences/services?  How can we describe our courses, services, products in ways that are meaningful to our audience/students?  what are the key words?

"Services:" What services am I providing?  Which audience/student segment(s) typically want those services?  Is there a progression, an order, to obtaining or delivering services?  What links would be helpful to the audience/students to provide further resources?

And don't forget  Shakespearean sonnets:

Sonnet 60

Like as the waves make toward the pebled shore,
So do our minuts hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
in sequent tiol all forward to dontend.
Nativity, one in the main of light,
Crawls to matuirty, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that give doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the paralels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

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