My Life on the Web
Getting Started
   
 

I'm amazed at the extent of the research currently being done on the web. Pundits, inside and outside academia have hit the gold mine and are mining for all its worth. Who knows, maybe some of what is being said will come true. For my money, a lot of this is about as useful as researching how to squeeze sunshine out of cucumbers. (At the same time, there are very interesting "uses and grats," agenda setting and content analysis projects being done).

Having said that, the web has been enormously handy in providing many, including myself, a vocation. I opened the InterBev website in August 1995 (I was SO happy to have the latest upgrade of Netscape to look at it -- Version 1.1), hoping to show that information, not graphics, is what trade show exhibitors and attendees really want.

To some extent I think I was right.

This emphasis on substance over form has not been without its cost. I'm sure that those who confuse complexity with profundity have missed the intent of this site. The InterBev site is not a temple to the wonders of Photoshop and Illustrator. It is not an archive of gif animations lifted from other sites. It is not a resume entry for me at the expense of serving its target audience.

Reorganizing

Give me Jerry Lewis movies. Unending reruns of Green Acres. Anything but reorganizing websites. After a poorly planned start with InterBev -- hey there weren't any manuals on this stuff -- I reset all the content in folders. Gee, that was so much fun that I gladly took on UNC's J-School site when I returned there to study in Fall 1997.

The site was a wreck: image files everywhere, more than 250 files at the root folder. It had the organization of a herd of cats. And I like cats. Ask anyone.

Planning Ahead

So when, at the invitation of Paul Jones -- a true master of the web -- I started working on the IUPAC site, I vowed this one would be planned from the start. That's not to say there haven't been false starts, but in one year, we developed more than 5,000 files, and more than 75 mbs of content. I must say that working with a professional like Fabienne Meyers at IUPAC made it much more fun -- bouncing ideas off someone who took thinking in four dimensions just as seriously as I do.

That is, by way of example, my philosophy on web work. It might be summarized as

A Code

  • Think of who will be accessing the site in terms of what they need (information to convert into knowledge), not in terms of what you need (to impress them).
  • Think of how you can make the site easier to navigate, even if this sacrifices graphical aesthetics.
  • Be honest about what you borrow from other sites: give credit (this includes code).
  • Remember: most of the world has a 15" view of the web, not 17" and certainly not 21": use a single-cell box to control your line width.
  • Readability white backgrounds always beats art school black ones. And who exactly can read white type on a black background set at -1? Get real.


I've included some additional links for those interested in where we are going with the web.

 


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Page Last Updated 9/20/99
Copyright 1999 Thomas Gould
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