What Makes Your Website Special?

I admit it; there are times when people like me, who specialize in things like usability and search, come into conflict with people whose primary goal with a website is to make it snazzy.

Not that I'm opposed to snazziness on principle. It's just that when I see a designer's eyes light up at the thought of making a really flashy thing happen on the screen, or hear a client say, "Wouldn't it be cool if..." -- well, I can foresee that I'm going to have to be the one who says, "Yes, that would be fun, but do your clients really want a three minute auto-loading music video if they're usually calling you at midnight because a family member has been arrested? I mean, maybe they'd like to get your phone number right away."*

So I've been very happy about the new website Tom Hapgood and I are working on. The screen above shows you the homepage. If you click on that turned up corner, the translucent white sheet will lift right up and show you this:

The first screen in the photo gallery. Click on the arrow, and you can see more images:

More images with alt text, in fact, so this is good for search -- unlike the rotating flash screens which completely baffle the search engines.

You can easily pull that white sheet back down, too, when you're through looking at the picture gallery -- no need to wait for the information you want. The white sheet also has a feed from the "What's Happening?" page, so visitors can quickly check on upcoming events and specials. 

Tom built this with  the open source jQuery javascript library, which web professionals are getting very excited about. This technology is CSS3 compliant and cross-browser supportive, so all visitors can see it. Since all the images have good, clear alt text, people with limited vision using screen readers will also be able to understand the site easily.

When you feel that your website needs some bells and whistles, talk with your web professionals about ways to provide that without interfering with usability and search. Skillful designers can do that. And your entire team should recognize the value of that goal.

* Yes, actually, I had that conversation just last week.