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MacKiDo
rev-7
- up to March 5, 1998
OK. Big redesign -- but the effects are subtle. That means that things are settling down into a good, stable predictable UI.
I touched up the buttons and almost all graphics to make them look better. Mainly I added a "state" -- the buttons show the current area you are in (because that button is black).
I added a "headline" article (with a teaser) to get people interested in the newest article (and hitting my home page more often to see "what's up"). But to do that, I had to remove the MacKiDo guy. He'll return as a T-shirt or Mug or something. Maybe the merchandising will help me recoup all the money I spend in server fees.
AppleBits was added. Fred Giuffrida was doing a daily pro-Mac update, so I asked if he would do it for me. He agreed. I think we complimented each other well. My weekly articles, and his daily news.
I did a comic for a while, but it took too much time to keep it up. I'll do more -- but just don't have time for now.
I put the legend on a separate page, but put a graphic link to get to it from the home. I want people to understand how to get around.
I also created a "terms" page, and threw little "links" and definitions to those terms throughout the site. This allows people to lookup terms they don't understand and creates a neat cross-reference style -- and is the whole advantage of Hyper-Text over regular documents.
I also added an ending control block to every page (and a signature block at the top). This should standardize things a little more, and give it a professional feel.
There was a lot of site reorganization -- including:
- History was taken out of DarkSide, and made into its own new section.
- Interface articles were collected from a few areas, and made into its own section.
- News was renamed to Opinion -- this more properly labeled that section.
- People was created -- a new section for all the computer people (and quotes).
- Thought -- was just philosophical ramblings (collected from other parts of the site).
By the end, of MacKiDo 7, just a little over year after I started it. I had surpassed my 500,000th visitor.
Hit counters are not consistent -- some people count every hit. This means that some pages count graphics, or if there are frames with sub-pages, a single visitor may be 3 or 4 hits. Others count only one per visitor per page. My counter only counts how many times the image has been refreshed (the CGI has been run). What this means is that depending on the way the caching of the browser works, a visitor may register only one visit per DAY or less. So having half a million times that someone viewed my site, or read my articles, is very impressive to me.
Lessons
- Headlines are important!
Get something to hook visitors from the moment they visit
your page! You want them to get "stuck" each time they
visit. And in my case, I want to try to give them a
reason to visit often.
- Don't be afraid to reorganize.
As your site grows, you have to be willing to grow with
it, and take the lumps in the process.
- Always look for helpers and
ways that you and others can compliment each other:
Win-Win exists. Some people (Bill Gates?) always think
that for one person to win, another must loose. Don't buy
into that. Find ways to compliment each other -- look for
complimentary goals.
- Prioritize and Jettison
the baggage (make the tough choices). In my case the
comics took too much time, and prevented me from doing
other things. I could write two or three articles, or do
one comic. Which do my readers value more? I assume it is
the articles.
- Hit counters don't always mean
the same things.
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