"In today's fast changing business environment, your organisation's URL is as vital as its telephone numbers."

Tony C Borty, The Netpoint Project.

Before any company considers setting up
a new website, serious thought
needs to be applied to what
is trying to be achieved
through a presence
on the Web.

he World Wide Web has matured from its beginnings in academia, with its nerdy, whizz-bang, clique-ridden atmosphere, into its current position as a vast international classroom, playground and marketplace. It has become an unstoppable tidal wave of information. The number of users on the Internet has been growing exponentially over the last few years and a Web address has fast become an essential item in the arsenal of public relations tools available to local, national and international organisations.

Your company will need a dynamic and effective website, with a strong website marketing strategy, in order to communicate with this massive international network of people and organisations, and to start exploring the possibilities in the new fields of eCommerce and eBusiness.

Virtually Achieved

Before any company considers setting up a new website, serious thought needs to be applied to what is trying to be achieved through a presence on the World Wide Web. Mere presence itself is usually not enough - there needs to be some tangible benefit to either the company or its potential and existing customer base... preferably to both. Some of the most common aims cited are:

Global exposure for your organisation.

Showcase for your products.

New business lead generation.

Online ordering.

Feedback and information gathering.

Providing information (static/dynamic)
    to customers, suppliers or agents.

A cost-effective way to electronically
    distribute products, technical
    information or services.

To provide a useful public service, as a
    way of obtaining positive PR.

Just as a printed document can serve an almost limitless number of purposes, so can a website - it can act as a company brochure, customer or staff newsletter, technical manual, price list, lead generation system or order form.

However, a website can also do a lot more than the printed page - it can act as a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week customer service and information centre, and an interactive forum for client feedback - with information from searchable databases which can be updated on the fly. And of course as well as text-based information a rich multimedia presentation can be created that includes animation, voice, music, video, panoramas and rotating objects.
 

Case Study: Audience Systems

In October 1999, Audience Systems Ltd of Westbury in Wiltshire, manufacturers of world class seating, made their presence felt on the World Wide Web. The specification and design process took a total of two months and incorporated a visually dynamic appearance together with some advanced programming techniques, using Flash and Dreamweaver. The stunning animation of their world acclaimed telescopic seating was created from engineering drawings, originally in EPS format, using Flash.

The multinode panorama of the Glyndebourne Opera House features an entire auditorium installation of seats manufactured by Audience Systems Ltd. The conversion of their technical data sheets to Adobe Acrobat PDF format make documents readily available worldwide. The site also incorporates a rotating object of their newest chair design. As an additional resource and information tool for Audience Systems Ltd, this website has proved its worth repeatedly.

The final frame of the 20 second opening animation sequence.

One of the product range pages showing the animation of the TX system.

Left: True utility - product datasheets can be downloaded and printed in minutes from anywhere in the world, at any time of day or night.

URL: www.audiencesystems.com

Cyber Value

The underlying ethos of the Web when it was originally conceived by Tim Berners-Lee, a computer specialist at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN) in 1989, was that it should be "a collaborative knowledge-sharing tool". This vision has continued, and a website is seen as lacking if all it contains is flat pages of product information - there is nothing less satisfying for visitors to a site to be told that they need to phone or write to obtain the 'real' information they require - people go online to get useful information.

This leads to the concept of 'added value' i.e. providing a truly useful service to your visitors rather than merely giving them a cut down version of information that they could get from your company brochure. This might mean a printing company providing instant online quotes, a courier company giving online tracking of the current status of a package, a manufacturer providing online detailed technical specifications of their products and an email service to their technical support team with a guaranteed response time.

The Medium, the Message

In the same way that you cannot use a radio advert in a newspaper, merely attempting to replicate a printed document on the Web is a singularly unsuccessful exercise. The variety of media that can be utilised, along with the differences in reading from a screen rather than the printed page and also user expectations lead to a totally new approach to designing for the Web. This does not just relate to the way the web pages look - the 'infostructure' of a website is also completely different to the linear structure of a book or brochure.

A website can consist of just a few pages of information or can be a massive collection of data (the website of one of the UK's local authorities, Hampshire County Council - www.hants.gov.uk - contains well over 700,000 pages of information). Unlike a brochure, the size of a website is virtually unlimited and can literally be updated every day or even every hour.

Although, as has been described, the Web as a medium has very different qualities to print, TV or radio, it is nonetheless vital that key elements of corporate visual identity such as logo, typefaces, colour schemes and less tangible elements such as 'editorial voice' are carried through from print media to the website in order to maintain a consistent overall corporate ID.

There are two other factors - website maintenance and marketing - that are as important as the website itself. If these two elements are not in place, you could find your whole experience of the World Wide Web a disappointing experience.

Website Garage

This comes in two parts - firstly the updating and maintenance of the information and hyperlinks on the site.

Because of the instantaneous nature of the Web, there is an expectation amongst users that websites will be updated regularly with fresh and relevant information. It is when your visitors see your site as a source of relevant and useful information that they will keep returning, building trust and loyalty as you go, and so increasing your sales opportunities.

The second consideration of website maintenance is keeping up with browser updates and new plugins - taking advantage of any useful new elements whilst always being accessible to those with lower specification software. It is best to design a site to work optimally with a particular browser and plugin set, whilst always making sure that all users will get a result, even if its not the all-singing, all-dancing hi-tech version. This may mean creating two or more versions of a website.
 

Case Study: PanStadia

Here, visitors are able to sign up online for subscriptions using a number of payment methods including most major credit cards, browse for information, obtain past articles via mail and access the websites of other industry related organisations.

Always colourful, always informative, visit the site today and find out for yourself why PanStadia continues to be the definitive journal for the sports facility industry.

URL: www.panstadia.com

Marketplace

Just as there is no point in getting a 50,000 run done of your latest brochure and then leaving it sitting on pallets at the printers, there is no point in going live with a fantastic new corporate website if nobody knows about it. It is important to consider marketing before commencing on the design of your website, as it can have major implications in the design process.

There are two methods of promoting your site - passively and actively, using your existing promotional media (print, TV etc) as well as the Web.

PASSIVELY: Include your new web address (URL) on all items where your other company details are seen - this has cost implications as it can mean reprinting stationery and brochures, and doing additional post-production on your print or TV advertising. Include the URL on the signature file of all emails and submit the site to all the search engines.

ACTIVELY: Send a promotional leaflet to all your contacts and press releases to relevant newspapers and trade journals. Make use of word of mouth. On the website itself you will need to consider registration of visitors to the site, online subscriptions to email newsletters, referral schemes (visitors refer your site to colleagues who they think may find it of interest), password protected areas of the site for paying subscribers or existing customers and so forth.

Your website needs to be an integral part of your marketing and customer service strategy.

Website Design Process

The stages that the Netpoint Project goes through in the construction of a website are as outlined below:

Initial consultation.

Market position research.

Initial report and proposal.

Domain registration and webspace.

Website content development and design.

Javascript and CGI programming.

Special features animation, voice, music,
     video clips, 360 degree panoramas and
     rotating objects.

Testing and review.

Maintenance, training and marketing.

Whatever the nature of your enterprise, in today's fast changing business environment, your company's URL is as vital as its telephone numbers for continuing growth - being without one could even mean losing out on business.

The Netpoint Project

The Netpoint Project provides a comprehensive range of Internet services, offering full domain name registration, free dial up accounts and email addresses (UK), website hosting and website design - including all graphics, animation, sound and database facilities, plus editorial and photographic services as required.

WIRE design, formed in 1990, specialists in graphic design are the web design arm of The Netpoint Project. A full website maintenance and marketing package is also offered plus sourcing any associated hardware or software you may require.

As the first step towards your company's new web presence, the Netpoint Project can produce a report for you, to include a preliminary site map, home page visual and some ballpark figures for the design and production of your website. Contact Netpoint for a Website Questionnaire. Also, several White Papers relating to the Internet are available at no charge on request.

Contact The Netpoint Project on telephone: +44(0)1273 778122
or at the website: www.netpointproject.net