Articles

Cory Computer Systems

"A good print design is usually a lousy Web design"

--- Jakob Nielsen, nationally known usability expert


About Us --- Presenting Information About an Organization on its Website
Study participants searched websites for background information ranging from company history to management biographies and contact details. Their success rate was 70%, leaving much room for usability improvements in the "About Us" designs.
 
What makes a good web design?
Common sense. After all, usability really just means making sure that something works well: that a person of average (or even below average) ability and experience can use the thing---whether it’s a Web site, a fighter jet, or a revolving door---for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.
 
What Do I Do to Design A Website?
This is a 10-step process from Meeting with the customer to signing a contract.

1. Meet with the customer via Email, Phone, or Face-to-Face.
2. Establish whether they want a new website or a redo of an existing one.
 
I help people with their business; I do it in several ways:
  • Setup and maintain a web site
    • Take over a current site, redoing it in a consistent manner
    • Maintain a current site, updating as required
    • Create a new site, using a corporate template/design
    • Create a new site from scratch
  • Create a new site and turn over to a customer
  • Create a new site and allow the customer maintain it
  • Create a new site and allow the customer to make changes and additions
  • Procure a hosing company
  • Procure a Domain Name
     
Piecing together the Web page puzzle: Layout best practices Help
This article explains how to create a good Web page layout by examining page elements

Let's say you have a puzzle to put together, but it is unlike any jigsaw that you have done before. You decide how big the pieces are, how they fit together, and even how the finished picture looks. A Web page is just such a puzzle.
 
Web Usability - What the Public Says
Excerpts from University of California, Davis Extension Course - Writing for the Web
 
Can I manage my website myself?
Should you build and maintain your business Web site yourself or pay someone to do it for you? Let me answer your question with a couple of my own. Number one: Is building and maintaining Web sites the key focus of your business? Number two: Could your time be better spent doing more important things like, oh I don't know, running your business? If your answers were no and yes, respectively, then you have no business building and maintaining a Web site.
 
Can I manage my website myself? Q & A
Should you build and maintain your business Web site yourself or pay someone to do it for you?
  1. Is building and maintaining Web sites the key focus of your business?
  2. Could your time be better spent doing more important things like, running your business?

If your answers were no and yes, respectively, then you have no business building and maintaining a Web site.
 
Two Topics:
  1. It's all about speed
  2. Throw out the rotten fruit
 
What is it going to cost?
There are two types of costs:
  1. Fixed Costs
  2. Variable Costs
 
Electronic Mail

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

- Herodotus, describing the Persian courier system about 500 B.C.,
inscribed on the General Post Office, New York City, U.S.A.

What is e-mail? In its simplest form, e-mail is an electronic message sent from one computer to another.