By Peter Pastore, Scott Lewis and George Flanagin A website is like the Chimaera of Greek Mythology - an ugly, fearsome beast with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent. Websites currently conjure an image of being created from 3 distinct other animals - print media, broadcast journalists and traditional software. Websites are often just as ugly and fearsome and embody the confusing conflict represented by the Chimaera. What is a website? To build a usable website, we should have knowledge of the answer. It is difficult to define precisely what an online is however, due to the fact that as an entity, website was not ever compulsory to hold a precise meaning.
The meaning has evolved, and it continues to evolve organically. Webster's defines an online as: a team of World Large Web pages usually containing hyperlinks to each other and created available online by an individual, company, educational institution, government, or organization. This seems a bit like defining a bar stool like a collection of wood, metal, or other fabrics created available by a bar or restaurant. This definition does not help the proprietor, the furniture builder nor the user regarding the bar stool. We lack a definition that incorporates the function and purpose of a website.
Howcome does an lone or an organization make this collection of pages available to World Large Web? The de facto technical definition does not mention the purpose or the function of a website, the method we may speak that the bar stool is provided such that patrons regarding the bar can sit, be comfortable, and give more time and more money within the bar. A website is the representation regarding the desires of 4 different groups: the proprietor or location owner, the designers, the implemeters and the users or location visitors. The owner regarding the location thinks of an online like a representation of their organization or self, if the location is about an individual, generally intended to advertise or market the organization. Designers look websites as an extension regarding the print and broadcast media. Developers tend to look websites as purely technical expressions of different programming languages.
What regarding the visitor to site? Within the views presented within the previous paragraph, the visitor is an extension, for example the owner's view that advertising is aimed at the visitor, or the designer's view regarding the location being appealing to viewer, or the developer's view that the visitor represents a set of other technologies that the location wants to be can handle the browser, for example. The invention regarding the World large web cannot be attributed to a lone entity. The conglomerate technologies are the inventions of multiple key players, each of whose innovations enable some aspect regarding the system. Within the similar to way, the WWW arose through the convergence of a series of unrelated technologies, and there was no central system or vision. When television was first invented, it was treated like radio with pictures until the prime time drama began creating use of images as many as dialog to tell a story.
In a similar way, the WWW is overcoming explicit and implicit comparisons with print and broadcast media. Little of these comparisons are valid but the WWW has capabilities that older journalists lack: it is fundamentally interactive and based on pull demand rather than push supply. The WWW shall also be diverse. Cable or satellite television shall release the viewer higher than 500 channels; the WWW sends hundreds of millions of choices of websites and it is growing every day. The radically different perceptions owners, designers and developers have of websites, make a confusing conflict for the location user.
Owners treat websites as if they can be traditional advertising and marketing. Designers treat websites as existing forms of communication - like print and broadcast media. Developers treat websites as just another computer GUI to be dealt with. While we can describe an online as being a collection of these things, we have yet to define an one of a kind thing. We lack a definition that is focused on function, rather than components and technology.
Perhaps a picture is worth a thousand words, and we seek words for our definition that with function, purpose, creation and use. The diagram below represents the parties concerned, their regions of ownership, and most importantly their interactions. The diagram: The above drawing is our attempt to represent the components of a website, and their interactions in an abstract way. Like all abstractions, it was achieved by leaving out details within the interests of clarity and symmetry. The participants: The 4 points regarding the axes, proprietors, implementers, users and designers, represent the 4 classes of participants in a website.
They can be arranged within the method you look due to the fact that the groups on opposite ends regarding the axis are fewest aware of each other. The reader should also note that many traditional software processes not ever have users within the meaning that we assert in relation to websites; the users of many software processes are frequently the proprietors, and this creates website construction very different from the construction of other software systems. To clarify, a proprietor is someone who pays for the website. The proprietor owns the purpose, at fewest within the sense that without the proprietor the website should not ever be built. The decision to hold an online is rooted within the purpose, whether that purpose is ego gratification or an attempt to reach an online community of subscribers.
A user is what the proprietor should characterize like a customer or potential customer, and the person that the traditional website statistics should treat like a location visitor. Even if the user does not participate in defining the functions provided by the website, the user owns the functions due to the fact that he alone shall make the decisions about whether or not to use the site, and thus a decision about whether or not the functions are sufficient to meet his needs. An implementer is what many people should call a programmer. In a more general sense regarding the word, an implementer is the person who creates the operational component regarding the website. With the advent of templates to assist within the construction of a website, it is likely to hold a limited website without programming.
However, this post is really only concerned with websites of sufficient functionality to want one or more programmers. Within the earth of websites a designer is often a graphic designer, for as we have noted earlier within the article, websites are modeled to look like other, more familiar, things. The designers own the presentation regarding the website; they can be responsible for what everyone sees: the users, the implementers, and the proprietors. The interactions: The 4 ellipses represent regions of interaction, most with no problems understood by who is left out. For example, the users are seldom aware regarding the budget, and even more rarely do they like related to the costs.
The proprietors cannot manage the requirements, consequently many proprietors incorrectly attempt to negotiate them while the website is in a pre-production state. The programmers should not worry related to the atmospherics, for they can be not experts in branding. The designers should not stress out over database integrity or the programming languages used to make their plans a reality. Usability, the bottom line: Usability is the common ground. Each party shall share within the defeat if the location is not usable.
In earlier times we did not concern ourselves too many about usability for multiple reasons. In addition to reasons that should be clean from reading the preceding paragraphs, there exists others. Within the past, there were fewer choices about atmospherics. The lime painted screens of IBM mainframe days certainly left no doubt related to the methods used to make the underlying software. The flexibility within the atmospherics has not been a uniform gain for the users; it has definitely led to a tremendous increase in unusable sites, rather than increasingly high standards of usability.
Computer software was once largely a collection of processes for experts. This has changed, and websites have many in common with expert systems. Websites are now general purpose, publicly distributed, searchable, mass customized for user preferences, and with an extensive ability to book the user through unfamiliar territory. These were not ever issues until the past decade. The above deconstruction is complete.
We can now ask again, What is a website? One reasonable definition is something like this: A website is a [1] collection of pages at a known location in cyberspace [2] that are drafted in a method to make a recognizable set of atmospherics [3] to meet the functional wants of users who are attracted to [4] proprietor's purpose. So howcome should anyone like about properly defining what an online is? Possessing a common, function-based definition of an online has many advantages. Websites are here to wait and their importance in business and society is increasing every day and shall continue to do so. Websites are not the economic force predicted within the 1990's, however, billions of dollars worth of business are conducted via the web every year. The 2004 Presidential Campaign showed the importance regarding the web and candidate websites within the electoral process.
The rise of blogs and bloggers is changing the nature of journalism. Non-profit organization use the web and their websites effectively for fund raising and issue awareness. In 2004, connection to world large web via broadband surpassed 50% within the United States. As the means of access and network speeds improve, the use and functionality regarding the web and websites shall increase. The use of cell phones and other hand-held devices to access the web is increasing, creating the web like a communication tool more ubiquitous every day and more integral to daily life.
A common definition of what an online is promotes an usual language in talking about a website. This common language between owners, designers, and developers means fewer misunderstandings during the creation process for the site. This lowers the overall price of initial creation. Function-centered goals and compliance to accepted standards for an online make it easier to maintain over time, thus lowering the maintenance cost. When the location built by the developers is based on the functional goals of location owners and designers, a correct architecture for the technology should be achieved.
When designers understand the requirements and limitations regarding the technology, and the degree of anticipated changes to site, they can more readily and with no problems creation for compatibility with the technology and rate of change. When the owner understands the purpose of an online - providing a seat - they can better understand, predict and monitor costs.
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