| |
 | 2000 Powers Ferry Road, Suite 300, Atlanta, Georgia, 30067, USA. 770-989-7407. |
| |
 |
On this page, we decided to interview Duif about some of the most important aspects in moving a marketing campaign from print to the Web. |
| |
 | Jade River: I suppose our first question has to be, "How do you pronounce Duif?" |
| |
| Duif: (smiles) It's a Dutch word: Dove, like the bird. You can just use the English pronunciation. |
 | JR: OK, that's easy. Now--what's so hard about
moving to the Web? Can't you just take, say, a paper brochure, scan it in, and
do whatever you Web Wizards do to put it on an Internet computer, and be
done? I know you're always talking about "content", but you don't
really mean we have to write differently for Web campaigns, do you? |
| Duif: Oh, my. That's a big question, but I'm afraid the short answer is, yes, you do need to write a bit differently. You also need to do your graphics a little differently. You can make a paper brochure available from the Web by sending the reader the same kind of special graphics file you might give to your printer, like an Acrobat ".pdf file", but even then, you probably won't use exactly the same layout or copy as you would for a brochure that would actually be printed on paper. |
| JR: I know: you're going to tell me the Web is more like television, right? |
| Duif: You were right the first time; the Web is most like print. Sure, we can add music, and even little movies, but anything other than plain words takes a long time to download, so unless you're Paramount talking to a group of Star Trek fans, you can't really be sure your audience will wait for multimedia. There's some exciting research going on that will improve the technology, but for now, the Web is mostly text with pictures. The important thing, though, is that it's hypertext, and that's both the wonderful part and the horrible part from a marketing person's point of view. |
| JR: I thought hypertext just meant 'on the Internet.' One of those technobuzz words. |
 | Duif: No, "hypertext" has a real meaning, and it existed before the Web. Hypertext means words displayed on a computer screen that let the reader jump to somewhere else. When they click on those words with the mouse, the system will load new information related to those words. If you have Windows, you've probably seen this done in the online help files. There will be a term like FOOTNOTES, and when you click on it, the system will take you to the help information that's related to Footnotes. We do the same thing on the Web. You might be reading a section on "Writing for an International Market" and see the word France underlined. Underlining means hypertext on the Web. So you know if you click on that word, you're going to get more information about France. |
| JR: I don't understand. How does this "hypertext" jumping around affect the design of Webpages? |
| Duif: Well, in print, we have to fit a certain size. We're limited by the paper we choose. In a print brochure, I might be limited to 4 small pages, and I'd have to write the same four pages for every reader. With hypertext on the Web, I can offer lots of different kinds of information, and let my reader decide how much--or how little--he wants to see. So if I'm selling trucks, I can include hypertext references to "gas mileage," "safety statistics," "payloads," and "custom color options," and everyone reads only the parts that interest them. My main page might say, " Our trucks get great gas mileage" and then if you CLICK on those hypertext words you'll see a whole mileage chart. If you aren't interested in the details on gas mileage, you just keep reading. So it's easy to give each reader as much or as little as she wants to see. |
 | There's another good thing about Webpublishing, too, which is a big advantage over print. It's easy to add or change information and, as we've seen with hypertext, it's very easy to add more detail without bogging down the main page. I don't have to scrap all the hard work and money I've invested in my first 'print run.' If I'm doing print brochures, sometimes I try not to put too much detail in them, because I don't want to have to throw away a bunch of printed brochures when information changes. With the Web, I can keep my information fresh and detailed. I still have to pay for a writer's time, of course, but I don't have that investment in thousands of paper catalogues or brochures that can never be used again because they're out of date. |
| JR: So that's the 'wonderful' part...now what's 'horrible'? |
 | Duif: The worst thing is probably that the Web is so slow. Even the fastest connection is slower than the human eye--you can scan a phone book page by eye much faster than I can 'serve it up' on the Web. Also, the Web shows you information in very small windows relative to the amount of text you can get on a book page. So Webpages really are about the size of your typical business envelope, as far as the amount of information you can show at any time. I've done training materials and promotional materials in print for a number of years-- I miss my two page 8.5" x 11" color layout...And so does every other marketing person who starts working on the Web! |
|
JR: Can't you just show me the information, one window at a time?
That's what the scroll bars are for, right? |
 | Duif: Oh, but it's not the same. People get tired of scrolling, and the brain gets confused. We're used to being able to look back to the beginning of the paragraph or the beginning of the page--with hypertext, we may not even remember where the original article started! It certainly won't be visible...So as Web designers, we have to write copy the way we would write for a slide presentation. Small 'chunks' at a time, lots of white space. We let the eye rest in between pages. And we take advantage of hypertext to let the reader decide which 'slide' they want to see next. |
 | Duif: We even have the same kind of problem with fonts. There are two kinds of fonts: those that have a little ornamentation on each letter, for example a small curve at the bottom of the letter "t" or a crossbar at the bottom of the letter "l", and those that use as few extra lines as possible, and just show an "l" as a straight vertical line. The fonts with the extra ornamentation are called Serif fonts, and the plain Jane versions are called Sans Serif. You might not think it matters, but studies show that serif fonts are much easier to read: the letters sort of flow into each other. So reading comprehension can be as much as 20% higher on a printed page if we use a Serif font. Unfortunately, all those little extra bits in the serif fonts, the same things that make reading flow smoothly from one word to the next in print, can cause fuzziness when they're displayed on a computer screen, so many designers prefer sans serif fonts like Arial for online display. But by using a serif font we've lost that smooth flow between the letters, and the reading comprehension goes down again. You can see each letter more clearly, but you may not get the meaning of the paragraph. So it's still a challenge to communicate effectively on the Web. |
 | JR: We've been hearing a lot lately about "New Tech" and the Web. What about Java? VRML? All that sexy animation stuff? Most designers charge a lot extra for that--do we need it on Webpages in order to reach a commercial audience? How does it affect going from print to Web? |
| Duif: Do you want the real answer? |
| JR: Please. |
 | Duif: Well...We have two real audiences on the Web. What I call the "Nintendo Generation", or the "N-Generation." Kids, really, some of them as young as 13 or 14. They surf the Web for entertainment, and they're used to high-speed flash from videogames and television spots. They make movies like The Power Rangers a success. And--they have young eyes. They like yellow text on blue backgrounds. Spinning graphics. Pop-bottle bowling. More than that: although they like the graphics to be fast, they're not really in a hurry to get anywhere. They have lots of time to sit and wait for the latest VRML world to download. |
| Then there are what I call the "Plain Language" people. Everyone from a business executive to a parent trying to get information about special items for an asthmatic child. These people are in a hurry. They have other places to be, and other things to do. Most businesspeople, and most consumers over the age of 25, will not wait more than 20 seconds for a page to download. |
| If I go into a board room and do a 5 minute presentation on how exciting the Web can be, your interest will be drawn to the N-Generation pages. But if I actually give you a task and turn you loose on the Web: if I say, 'Find me three suppliers for printer cartridges.' or 'Get the statistics on Cable Television use in the Dallas market,' you change, instantly, from N-generation to Plain Language. You want information, and you want it quickly. |
| A page should be pleasant, but it doesn't need hype. If we've learned anything about marketing in the 90's, it's that we have to respect our customers. They're at least as smart as we are. They don't like being yelled at. They appreciate advertisers who value their time. And if they're 40 years old or more, well: yellow print on blue backgrounds isn't going to get our message across. |
| JR: But you do Java programming. |
| Duif: (smiles) I could give you the easy answer, and tell you that there are many situations where the ultrahightech is appropriate. So of course we use it there. But as long as we're telling the whole story, let me admit the truth: designers get bored, too, sometimes. Java is fun-- for us. The 'Web Wizards,' as you so kindly put it. We love doing animation. Those little mice that run across the screen, pop-up windows, intricate navigation tools. Those are new toys for us. Besides, we like to stay ahead of the game. Just like your marketing department was probably trying to get you into videocassette brochures long before you saw a need for them. Even your copywriters get bored: they may want to slip rap jargon into ads for financial instruments. "New and different" is always fun for the Wizards. But the key to being a good Web designer, and not just a technical expert, is to use the technology that's appropriate to meeting the goals of the client. That matches the customers/readers you're trying to reach. The surveys show it, over and over again: Web authors love new technology; people walking through a Mall (or sitting in a board room!) are drawn to animated pages, but regular readers on the Web like quiet voices and information that's fast and easy to get to. |
| JR: What other challenges come up when you move from print to the Web? |
 | Duif: Well, both graphics and information flow have to be handled differently. We've already talked about how readers can use hypertext to control where to go next by clicking on a word in a sentence and suddenly jumping to a whole new page. That also means that the author has no idea where the reader came from! One reader might start on 'Page 3,' without ever having seen 'Page 1.' Another might go 4, 2, 3, 1, 5. So every page has to assume that some readers came in 1-2-3-4-5, while others came in from who knows where! That's a real challenge for a copywriter. |
| Duif: But I suspect that our readers' eyes are getting tired by now, and I think we've done about all we can with one Webpage--we'll save those details for another time. |
| JR: This has been great on the concepts--can we get more specific next time on the steps in moving from a print brochure to an online brochure? |
| Duif: Jade River Designs already has a chart showing the different steps you go through in designing a paper brochure vs. an online brochure available at
the Paper To Web Process Chart. And marketing managers might be particularly interested in coming back another time to see The Marketing Manager's Plain English Internet Guide. It's full of specifics, but I have to warn you--that one is full of words, too! (Smiles)
I think an even better place to start might be our one-page summary, Will the Web Work For Your Business? It's a good, quick introduction to what kinds of businesses do well on the Web. |
| JR: Thank you. |
 | For
more information about Jade River Designs and our services, see our homepage
at http://www.jaderiver.com If you would like to write to Duif Calvin directly, e-mail to duif@jaderiver.com |
| Looking for more of the "Why" of the Web instead of the "How"? See our Marketing Manager's Plain English Internet Glossary. |
| Here are more interesting sources of information about designing for the Web: | ||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
Questions? Comments? write us at jaderiver@jaderiver.com
Return to the Jade River Designs homepage at http://www.jaderiver.com/. Unless otherwise credited, all images and text are Copyright 1996, Jade River Designs, Atlanta, Georgia. All rights reserved. |
One of the keys
to the Internet community is the willingness of most participants to "give
something back to the Web". Our senior designer, Duif Calvin, is a
volunteer member of a number of internet organizations, where she gives design
assistance and offers mentoring to both hobbyists and professional designers.
While much of her advice in those forums is technical, she's also well-known on
accessibility issues: designing pages that will be usable by many people. This
can be a critical issue for both non-profits and commercial websites, since the
more people who can read
your site, the wider your outreach will be.
