Initial Client Interview

We were able to get some valuable information, but I'm not sure that the client is clear about what goals she wants the web site to accomplish. This could be in large part because there is so much to do, just to open the doors, and so much is changing very quickly. It will be important to make sure that her goals and ours "match".

She mentioned that she is working with someone to do the marketing. I would think that we want the web site to follow the marketing strategy closely. What is the time frame for the marketing? Will this cause us problems with the web site? This will be something we need to clarify.

It would have been nice to have more time to meet with her. It seemed like we were just getting our questions answered and getting a feel for what she wanted, when it was time to leave. I feel that, in general, we did accomplish what we needed to for an initial meeting.

Questions for the Stakeholders

Here are the questions that I feel are important to ask.

• What are the goals/objectives of the site?
• Who is the target audience? Who will visit the site? And what do you want the visitors to do when they are at the site?
• Who will write the content? Do they already have text and/or pictures that they know they want on the site?
• When do they want the site operational?
• Do they already know how they want the site to look, ie color, layout, etc.?
• Who will make decisions and give us feed back on progress made building the site?
• Who do we contact with questions?

The Good and the Ugly

Lets start with the ugly.
The website http://www.havenworks.com/ is a really bad one in my opinion. (I actually found the site by going to http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/.) There are many things that I don't like, but here are the top 4.

1. The colors used are atrocious and obnoxious.
2. After spending time looking at the site, I'm still not sure what the main purpose is. It obviously has a great deal of political content and seems to be biased towards promoting the Democratic Party. But what is the reason that the website exists? I don't know.
3. It is very cluttered and unorganized.
4. The pages are too long.

Now for the good.

A website that I like is http://www.upmc.com/. I've been to this site often while researching knee injuries. What I like about this site:

1. The site contains a tremendous amount of information. Everything from directions to their different facilities to educational videos. But it is very easy to navigate around.
2. The site is updated often. As I said previously, I've been researching knee injuries and have been to the site several times over the last year. It seems like every time I visit, something has been added. (They have even kept up with the construction in Pittsburgh when posting directions!)
3. All of the pages load quickly, even the informational videos.