okay, I have a little confession to make here. I have a very basic web site, and I do most of the web mastering myself. There is no flash video on my web site, and there are no frames (and least I don’t think there are). It’s all pretty basic HTML.
Part of the problem with my web site is that I created it way back when… I think it was 1992. And along with the usual standard “here I am and here’s what I do” home page, I was actually sort of blogging before blogging really existed, in that I would create independent web pages with all kinds of content… and it just sort of piled up over the years.
I am occasionally taken to task for having such a simplistic design of my web site. I confess, it really doesn’t look as flashy or slick as those of a lot of authors and speakers. Every once in while some person in the event industry who is of course very visually oriented will tell me I should get a fancy web site.
Well here’s the problem: for all the people who tell me that I should fancy up my web site, I have just as many people telling me how wonderful it is … as is. One professional web designer told me that my site was “extremely pliable,” meaning that the text and the pictures just flowed to fill out the available window space. many sites don't do that. God help you if you have a different size screen than the creator.
And just recently, another friend of mine, who is a professional web usability person, had to call me up for something, and she had to look up my phone number on my website using her mobile device. When she started to comment on using my website on her mobile, I started to cringe because I was assuming that she would tell me I’d done something terribly wrong. But she was actually telling me how great it was that she could very easily navigate my simple little web site on her mobile phone, unlike so many others that were so fancy she couldn’t see anything on them. (italics mine).
It’s wonderful to have a flashy web site, and if you can afford it, and if you’re not constantly tinkering and upgrading it and adding new stuff to it, well, maybe a nice flash open and beautiful graphics and frames is the thing for you. And if you don’t care about the people on iphones etc who are trying to see it and can’t, go to it.
My web site is not designed to be a big icon out in front. I am really not into being a grandiose icon. I am into direct connection to my audience. My web site is more of like a “ma-and-pop store.” Not real fancy, but cozy, friendly, comfortable, and easy to deal with.
Can’t please everyone.
© Justin Locke
