When designing any web page, it
feels like it should be common sense to have parameters and guidelines to
follow in order to make your web page be successful, effective, and
informative. However, the problem is
that, as most, of us know, people are lacking common sense. When reading the AASL article “Building
Websites That Work For Your Media Center”, it lists some basic things that we
should all keep in mind. Choose your
target audience wisely. Patrons
utilizing the media center website should be able to flow through the site
easily without having to have a college degree as toddlers. Create different sections of your media
center that reflect the target audience, for example, a children’s section in
colorful backgrounds and images relevant to their age. Also, displaying your information in an
outline format, indenting information under headings, and keeping paragraphs
short in length. Fonts are a huge pet
peeve of mine. Granted I have had
glasses since I was three years old, but I cannot stand to look at a website
and struggling to make out what the words are saying. I am not so old and blind that I need basic
block fonts but I do want to see a font on the screen that I can easily read at
a glance and not have to spend time looking at.
Chances are, if I have to spend time trying to read the words, I am
changing websites immediately.
Web 2.0
tools are a huge benefit to schools today whether in the classroom, home, or in
the media center. I wish my school
incorporated more and allowed teachers to actually use them, but until then all
I can do is dream about them. Are plain
old webpages outdated? Of course they
are, and it is does not take a lot of effort to spruce them up to this decade
to make them more appealing. The more
appealing the page, the more people will visit the page. This is crucial for the media center. Some people have a negative opinion of media
centers thinking that they are for nerds only.
With the proper appeal that stigma can be changed to create an
atmosphere of modern form and functionality.
I do not believe that we should do away with the media center web page
and turn it into a wiki or a blog. I
think that these features could be included but not replace the old
system. For one reason, all library
patrons are not in their teens and twenties.
This goes back to determining your target audience. Keep things modern and current while also
keeping a link to a previous simpler form for everyone to be able to use.
Websites have been a new adventure for me as well. Last year teachers at my school were given the opportunity to create websites linked to the school's site. The program we were to use had several good points, but was very confusing to use. I never fully understood the process for adding pictures -- which we elementary school people know parents love. Last semester in one of my classes I had the opportunity to use Weebly. Again, this was another new experience, but this was another one of those experiences I loved. When school began this year, I asked if I could use Weebly for my class website instead of using what we had last year. Now I have an adorable website my students and parents love. It's colorful, attractive, and full of useful information. Last year I never had comments on my website; this year I have students coming in telling me they visited my website and used some of the activities and websites I have listed. I'm beyond thrilled that I now have a useful resource for my students and their families to use. AND it definitely helps that Weebly is so user friendly. I highly recommend it for anyone needing to create a website. My next step is going to be to create a website for our media center. Our current media specialist has expressed an interest in having one, but is unsure of how to begin creating one. She's excited that I've volunteered to create one for her. I'm so glad to have these blogs to help give me even more ideas!
ReplyDeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post. We started a new web program from SharpSchool this year. It's pricey, but so much nicer to look at and navigate than our old "free" in-house one. Websites are windows to the world. They could judge us by what they see. We should endeavor to put our best foot forward. Having said that, it's a learning curve each time we switch to a new program. Weebly is so much easier to use, but not an option now that I'm the webmaster for our school. I have to set the example, but I have "analysis paralysis" in choosing what, where, and how much to put on it. I've got an awesome book "Don't Make Me Think" by S.Krug if anyone has a chance to read it, it is worth your time. thanks, Kristy Adams
Sorry I redid this while signed in. I'm new to blogspot.
DeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post. We started a new web program from SharpSchool this year. It's pricey, but so much nicer to look at and navigate than our old "free" in-house one. Websites are windows to the world. They could judge us by what they see. We should endeavor to put our best foot forward. Having said that, it's a learning curve each time we switch to a new program. Weebly is so much easier to use, but not an option now that I'm the webmaster for our school. I have to set the example, but I have "analysis paralysis" in choosing what, where, and how much to put on it. I've got an awesome book "Don't Make Me Think" by S.Krug if anyone has a chance to read it, it is worth your time.
Knowing your target audience I agree, is key. I am the media clerk in an elementary school and that means our patrons range in age from 5-11. The web page navigation abilities of our patrons are as diverse as their ages, not to mention the different levels of comfort the parents and guardians of the students have. Having our web page be easy to navigate and simply set up has helped our web page to be successful.
ReplyDeleteI loved your comment at the beginning--it should be common sense. As an English teacher, I could paint "target audience" on every surface in the school (and probably still be frustrated with people). It is sometimes difficult to focus on one's target audience, though, especially when creating. It is easy to get caught up in personalizing a website with features that appeal to the creator rather than the user. One of our school's problems , which several of you addressed in your comments, has been dealing with particular programs and/or webmasters. We have just recently moved from a program that was a personal favorite of a previous administrator. It lasted way beyond its usefulness because he was married to it, and while many stepped up to identify the flaws, no one took the lead to change it. Using this program was akin to using MS-DOS for a grade book. Individual teachers found ways around it when creating their blogs, but it took a new principal to finally relieve the school as a whole. Even this change created a new problem since it is outsourced and formatted on a template, which limits the flexibility the media specialists have for their page.
ReplyDeleteThe webpage is important enough to fight for a user-friendly platform like Weebly, which the media specialists can create, publicize, and update themselves. Even digging through the school's website to try to find the library page is a chore at our school, and finding the link the digital library is nearly impossible for students. Recently a local business is looking to partner with our media center to encourage use of the resources and reading. We are looking to add Twitter feeds, wikis, and blogging tools to provide ways for students to interact outside of the walls of the library. While I agree these shouldn't replace the informative nature of a website, I do think they can enhance the students' experience and "create an atmosphere of modern form and functionality" as Amanda puts it.
If I hear of a new business or need something, I look for a webpage, and I make a lot of judgments--for better or worse--in the first few minutes interacting with that page. Students want to use tools the library offers, even if it's because a teacher is requiring it, but because we so often forget that target audience, we are creating negative experiences that further alienate those we aim to serve.
Like you mentioned Amanda, the article, "Building Websites that Work for Your Media Center", contains many great points like targeting your audience, putting in content that gives users information and links to things they need, including appealing images, music, video to help communicate effectively, and making it visually scanable so they find what they want quickly. The last piece of advice is so important because of information overload and tight schedules these days. Usually we know what we want and we want it quickly. This is true for adults and elementary school students so I don’t agree with the author’s advice to include things of general interest such as links to ratings for tech devices around Christmas time, or top 10 vacation destinations just before summer vacation. Those things can be searched on the internet if they are wanted and inclusion is unlikely to cause a school media page to be visited more often. It will likely make the webpage busy. Plus it causes more work for the overly busy media specialist. ; )
ReplyDeleteAmanda, I agree with your comments on enhancing the media center web page by making it more attractive and appealing to all patrons. The web page is the perfect place to advertise and share useful information with parents and students. It is also important to make your site one that many will enjoy visiting and checking for updates. The article, "Building Websites that Work for Your Media Center", provided some helpful tips that I will refer to once I am a media specialist. After reading the comments, I see that I am not the only one who thinks weebly is amazing! It is a great place to start for a fairly easy way to create and navigate through a site. I also think the media center page should be a starting point for students when conducting research. The site should not only provide general information but also links to databases and educational resources. This will also encourage students to visit the page often.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the targeted audience should be the focus in designing a webpage. In our system, we utilize schoolsites. It is very difficult to make "colorful" and appealing to our younger students. It is very basic and many teachers have switched to Weebly to make it easier to use and more appealing to our students. When talking with my school media specialist about our media webpage, she said she never updates it and parents never use it. They use our school Facebook page instead. We are required to have very minimal information on our class websites. Most teachers don't utilize them as much simply due to lack of time and the difficulty of schoolsites. I think Weebly would be a much better tool for us to use! :)
ReplyDeleteI believe you made a great point about choosing your target audience wisely. When designing a media center website, you need to realize the audience will be students and parents alike, not just students. I like the suggeston of creating different sections so that the website is streamlined but also divided for the target audience. This will also make your website more organized which I think is very important when designing ANY website.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that sprucing up webpages to make them more interesting is very important. However, some people take the whole sprucing up to a whole new level which honestly, sprucing can be dependent upon personal taste. I love when webpage owners decide to make their words and content more appealing but sometimes they can go overkill on making the overall design appealing since they might find bright colors appealing while others do not. You had some great suggestions!
Being user-friendly when designing a website, especially one that is connected to a school, is essential. Your website will be utilized by a wide range of patrons. Students, parents, committee members, administrators, teachers, and any other stakeholders in school business may need to access the content in your website. The fact that there are so many different types of people who may need to refer to your site makes us (website creators) obligated to have a site that gives the general public the ability to access school and school media information. Do some additional research on how to make a creative, appealing website that can capture the attention of the savvy and keep the attention of those who may need a lower level of content. Thanks so much for your insight.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Amanda, the school media center is no longer just a place for nerds (and old, cranky, dried-up libraries) as the old-school cliché would have people to believe. The media center is now a hip and happening common area where students can come to seek out answers to their questions and discover stepping stones that lead to new pathways. The library webpage should reflect that for sure, and struggling to read itsy bitsy fonts is certainly not easy on the eyes when it comes to accessing a page to learn more valuable information. I share that pet peeve with you! Nothing can replace the value of a healthy, sophisticated but user-friendly webpage. But poor and empty formatting, and also having too many or too little pictures is also a common thing that I notice that hits high on my annoyance radar. I want a webpage to be easy. Simple as that. I want to easily access it to easily find whatever it is that I'm searching for and leave feeling more informed than I was when I originally clicked on, and I'm almost positive that students and other readers feel the same. Wham, bam, thank you webpage! Make no mistake about it, whenever I access a school library media center's page is find it to be too complicated or chalked full of useless and irrelevant info, I click right on to the next happening thing. So, being mindful of the targeted audience is a must. And maintain the reader's attention with visual interest but without causing overload. That's a plus!
ReplyDelete