An important aspect Information Architecture is regularly maintaining a website. It is necessary to delete old webpages, maintain and add information to current ones, and sometimes develop new section in order to renovate and rejuvenate a website. Having a structured Information Architecture plan requires both short and long term goals that are attainable and realistic. First, it is necessary to plan and develop these goals. Next, it is important to implement and manage a time frame for accomplishing the goals. Also, it is important to have a website evaluated, either formally or informally, in order to know what can be done to improve the navigation, design, and content of a website. Laying out these guidelines will aid in writing the action plan for the Lakeside Products Comanpy Website.
I am going to continue to manage the website for Lakeside Products Company. I have already asked the owner for a list of things that he wants renovated, updated, or added to the website. Hopefully, I will be able to work on the website over the holiday break. The owner of Lakeside Products Company has final say in what is put on the website. I check with him before making any major changes. The owner and I have a great communication line, so I always feel confident that he will be honest about his wants and needs for the website. Overall, I think website management is fun, there is freedom in it (to a point). As the website manager, I try to get input from all employees. Dave, at the Cincinnati store recommended adding this most recent sale to the website.
There were some small maintenance issues I needed to take care of before I did any thing else with the web site.
1. Establish Email links at the bottom on all the pages. My mother of all people had pointed out to me that I did not have the email envelop at the bottom of the 8 main pages I created. I took her advice and went ahead and put the icon on all the webpages (except in the price catalog area).
Here is an example of the icon. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
2. Annette mentioned making the email links that were written out on some of the pages active. I took here suggestion; they are now active email links for [email protected].
Here is an example of the active email. It is located at the closing of the letter.
3. I actually had a customer email me with a comment, I was so excited! The customer said she really liked the website. However, she had noticed a spelling error on the direction page, which I corrected immediately. I believe that maintaining a website includes making sure the information is accurate and correct, and that includes spelling. (My spelling mistake was the word: the).
Even though a lot of the information on the Lakeside website is static, there are some pages that need to be constantly enhanced and monitored such as the sales page and price catalog. Next week, there are going to be some prices changes in the catalog that will need updating.
The owner of Lakeside sent out an email to his customers that the website was officially up and running. Instead of mailing the sale flyer, he told them to check out the sales page on the website. The customer who emailed me with the spelling error said she liked the overall look of the website and was excited that the pricing catalog was online. I was able to obtain a small evaluation through the comments of a customer. I also obtained a prototyping evaluation with my fiance who used to work for Lakeside. I showed him what I was planning on doing with the design and content, which he received positively. He made some small suggestions about the design of the new banner, and layout of the links that are now on the left hand side of each webpage. I also had my mother re-evaluate the website, upon which she told me I still needed to make a better navigation system for the pricing catalog and that I should put the email envelop link at the bottom of all the webpages. I still have not been able to get the owner to evaluate the new information because he has been out of town this last week. I did talk to him on the phone about the changes and he seemed extremely receptive and said, Go ahead and put it up!
I am satisfied with the current status of the website, especially now with all the changes made. There are a few other modifications I want to make such as improving the navigation system of the price catalog. I have made a timeline for the website:
Throughout the year: Maintain and update the sales and pricing web pages when necessary.
December 2004 - January 2005 - Improve the pricing catalog. make the navigation system better. Also, improve the style of the pricing guide by making it easier to read (example: increase font size).
February 2005 - Create a form for customers. This form will make it possible for customers to purchase from Lakeside via the website. It will have the following sections: name, billing address, payment information, and a purchasing section.
March 2005 - Look into setting up a store online, price the best server/host for this venture. I am currently looking into the yahoo small business option. The Lakeside owner and I have to discuss the best plan of action for creating an online store.
April 2005 - Continue with any necessary upkeep of the website.
May 2005 - Improve the customer page. Make some design changes.
June 2005 - Decide on how to proceed with online purchases for Lakeside.
December 2005 - Have the online ordering capabilities implemented via the website.
For the Lakeside Products Company Webstie, I had a hard time trying to decide which advanced technical components I wanted to use. I tried a few different ideas, but I kept going back to the site not looking professional enough. I did not want the website to become too flashy. Since my skill level with advanced applications are limited, most of my technical components are simplistic. I used a total of three advanced applications.
1. Cycling Banners: I used this feature on the homepage where I have three banners on a continous cycle. This is a Javascript application with an array. It was tricky trying to figure out how to set this script up and get it to work. However, after about an hour of hard work I finally got my cycling banners to work. I only used this feature on the homepage of the Lakeside Product Webstie. I did not want the banner to become a distraction on other pages.
Here is the code from my cycling banner script. I did not include the other script information because it is basic.
adImages = new Array("images/lakesidebanner3.jpg",
"images/lakesidebanner4.jpg", "images/lakesidebanner5.jpg")
thisAd = 0
imgCt = adImages.length
function rotate() {
if (document.images) {
thisAd++
if (thisAd == imgCt) {
thisAd = 0
}
document.adBanner.src=adImages[thisAd]
setTimeout("rotate()", 3 * 1000)
}
}
2. Current Date and Time: I decided to use this javascript on the Lakeside Website because of its simplistic look. It is not destracting and looks professional, which is what I am trying to present with this website. The javascript time and date are located at the bottom of everypage above the validation icons.
3. Changing the Image when a Visitor Points: I thought this was a great way to spice up the website a little. I think the script for the image change is a interesting feature. A user can click on the coupon and it will provide a page that the coupon can be printed from without other information present.
In the future I hope to continue to make the website professional looking. This requires me to limit using some of the advanced applications. As I learn new advanced applications in the future, I hope to be able to add some new technical components to the Lakeside Website.
Most of the content on the Lakeside Website is very limited and static. There are certain sections of the website that need updating such as the sales and pricelist pages. For Project 3, I re-designed and added content to the website in the following ways:
1. New Banner Content: I have added two new banners to the homepage (cycling banners from the technical component).
2. Sale and Special Items: Lakeside has a sale running right now until December 15, 2004. I took the pictures and added the descriptions for the new sale items on November 30, 2004. This was a very time consuming process because of all the cropping I did in Fireworks. However, I enjoyed the process. At the bottom of the sale item page are new special items. When there are no sales going there will always be new special items on display.
3. Site Map: This site map is very basic right now. I added this content for my own purposes. This way I can keep track of where certain information is kept on the Lakeside Website. It could also be very helpful for a new customer.
Future content of this website will change very little, unless the company starts expanding, which is possible in the near future. I hope to add a form on the website as seen on the timeline above (I need to do some research on forms first). Plus, it is necessary to figure out what approach Lakeside wants to take with online ordering.
Now, all I have to do is stick to the action plan and timeline. Since I spent the time thinking about it and writing it, I better use it. I hope to keep providing Lakeside Products Company with an effective and professional looking website. Time will tell...