UNIT-2
PLANNING WEBSITE DESIGN
As the old adage goes, if you fail to
plan, you plan to fail. Building a website without a plan is like
constructing a building without blueprints.
Planning is necessary
since design of a site must occur before creation of web pages – to ensure a
good-quality site that does not need reworking at a later stage.
The main development
tasks which need to be scheduled as part of the planning process are as
follows:
1.
Pre-development tasks.
For a new site, these
include domain name registration and deciding on the company (ISP) to
host the web site. They also include preparing a brief setting out the
aims and objectives of the site, and then – if it is intended to outsource
the site – presenting the brief to rival agencies to bid for and pitch
their offering.
(A) Domain name
registration:
The process of reserving
a unique web address that can be used to refer to the company web site, more
usually referred to as a ‘web address’ or ‘uniform (or universal) resource
locator (URL)’.
Domain names are
registered using an ISP or direct with one of the domain name services
The following guidelines
should be borne in mind when registering domain names:
1. Check the competition
2. Make it easy to type
& remember
3. Also try to avoid
words that have more than one common spelling,
4. Hyphens and numbers
should be avoided
5. Choose
a Brandable Name
A brandable name has
no specific meaning (eg ‘Google’ is not a word, ‘YouTube isn’t
one either).
It’s unique —
your competition doesn’t use anything similar.
It’s easy to
memorize — not too wordy, no complex vowel combinations.
It’s easy to
pronounce and dictate over the phone.
6. Register the domain
name as early as possible. This is necessary since the precedent in the
emerging law is that the first company to register the name is the one that
takes ownership if it has a valid claim to ownership.
7. Register multiple
domain names if this helps the potential audience to find the site. Amazon.in
8. Make sure your domain
isn’t violating a trademark
Trademark violation is a
major issue that can cost you thousands of dollars if you don’t make the effort
to be safe. It also has the potential to land you in a costly legal battle that
can see your profits disappear.
9. Double-check your
domain’s search history
There’s no denying that
SEO plays a powerful role in online business success. This raises the need to
carefully evaluate your chosen domain name’s search history to make sure it
delivers positive results.
(B) Selecting an Internet
service provider (ISP)
Selecting the right
partner to host a web site is an important decision since the quality of
service provided will directly impact on the quality of service delivered to a
company’s customers. The partner that hosts the content will usually be an
Internet service provider (or ISP) for the majority of small and medium
companies, but for larger companies the web server used to host the content may
be inside the company and managed by the company’s IT department.
The quality of service of
hosted content is essentially dependent on two factors: the performance of
the web site and its availability.
(i) The performance of
the web site
The important measure in
relation to performance is the speed with which a web page is delivered
to users from the time when it is requested by clicking on a hyperlink. The
length of time is dependent on a number of factors, some of which cannot be
controlled (such as the number of users accessing the Internet), but primarily
depends on the bandwidth of the ISP’s connection to the Internet and the
performance of the web server hardware and software. It also depends on the
‘page weight’ of the site’s pages measured in kilobytes (which is dependent on
the number and complexity of images and animations).
Bandwidth Indicates the
speed at which data are transferred using a particular network medium. It is
measured in bits per second (bps).
(ii) The availability of
the web site
The availability of a web
site is an indication of how easy it is for a user to connect to it. In theory
this figure should be 100 per cent, but sometimes, for technical reasons such
as failures in the server hardware or upgrades to software, the figure can drop
substantially below this. The research showed that failure of transactions once
customers have decided to buy is often a problem. Turning consumers away once
they have made a decision to buy is commercial suicide’
● 20% of shopping carts
did not function for 12 hours a month or more. ● 75% failed the standard
service level availability of 99.9% uptime. ● 80% performed inconsistently with
widely varying response times, time-outs and errors – leaving customers at best
wondering what to do next and at worst unable to complete their purchases.
SciVisum (2005) research recommends
that companies do the following:
1 Define the peak visitor
throughput requirements for each customer journey on the site. For example, the
site should be able to support at the same time: approximately ten checkout
journeys per second, 30 add-to-basket journeys per second, five registration
journeys per second, two check-my-order-status journeys per second.
2 Service-level
agreement. More detailed technical requirements need to be agreed for each of
the transactions stages. Home-page delivery time and server uptime are
insufficiently detailed.
3 Set up a monitoring
programme that measures and reports on the agreed journeys 24/7.
2.
Analysis and design.
This is the detailed
analysis and design of the site, and includes clarification of business
objectives, market research to identify the audience and typical customer
personas and user journeys and their needs, defining the information
architecture of different content types and prototyping different functional
and visual designs to support the brand.
3.
Content development and testing.
Writing the HTML pages,
producing the graphics, database integration, usability and performance
testing.
4.
Publishing or launching the site.
This is a relatively
short stage.
5
Pre-launch promotion or communications.
Search engine
registration and optimisation is most important for new sites. Although search
engines can readily index a new site, some place a penalty on a new site
(sometimes known as ‘the Google sandbox effect’), where the site is effectively
on trial until is established. Briefing the PR company to publicise the launch
is another example of pre-launch promotion.
6.
Ongoing promotion.
The schedule should also
allow for promotion after site launch. This might involve structured discount
promotions on the site or competitions which are planned in advance. Many now
consider search engine optimisation and pay-perclick marketing as a continuous process, and will often
employ a third party to help achieve this.
Extra for reading purpose
only
About TLDs
There Are Three Different
“Types” of TLDs
There are actually three
types of TLDs, as assigned by the IANA/ICANN.
The IANA officially
recognizes these three types of TLDs:
gTLD – Generic Top-Level
Domains
sTLD – Sponsored Top-Level
Domains
ccTLD – Country Code Top-Level
Domains
1. gTLD – Generic
Top-Level Domains
The gTLD category
contains all the most recognizable TLDs. That is, this is the category with
common options like:
.com
.org
.net
Beyond these well-known
names, you’ll also find other fairly popular generic options like:
.xyz
.biz
.info
2. sTLD – Sponsored
Top-Level Domains
The sTLD group contains
TLDs that are sponsored by a specific entity, which could be a business,
government, or other groups.
Some of the most common
examples here are:
.gov – for use by the US government.
.edu – for post-secondary
institutions that are accredited by the US Department of Education.
.mil – for use by the US
military
3. ccTLD – Country Code
Top-Level Domains
ccTLDs are top-level
domains that represent specific countries. A partial list of common examples
is:
.us – USA
.uk – United Kingdom
.eu – European Union
.de – Germany
.fr – France
.cn – China
.es – Spain
.ru – Russia
.ca – Canada
.nl – Netherlands
.in – India
.ch – Switzerland
.jp – Japan
.cn – China
.br – Brazil
.id – Indonesia
.vn – Vietnam
In total, there are ~312 different ccTLDs
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