What's Your Web Site's Personality?

Can you describe your web site's personality?  The Web Manager's Academy at Computers in Libraries 2011 distributed a handout based on William Slawski's blog post What Kind of Personality Does Your Website Have?  Based on each, here are a selection of questions to ask of your site.

FEEL

• Is it cold or warm and welcoming?
• Does it attempt to evoke emotions in visitors or persuade them with facts?
• Is it cooperative or competitive?
• Is it responsive to questions, to criticism, to praise?
• Is it more like a peer talking to you directly or like a parent lecturing you?

RELEVANCE

• Is it inviting for first time visitors?  Why?
• Does it provide reasons for people to return?  How?
• Does it change over time, of is it fixed and unchanging?

AUDIENCE

• Is it written for a male, female or general audience?
• Does it speak to a younger crowd or and older group?

DESIGN

• Is it innovative in scope or design?
• Is it innovative in what it offers?
• Is it graceful in design or practical in appearance?

FOCUS

• Is its focus upon the benefits it offers users?
• Is its focus on the features of the organization to which it belongs?

Survival Strategies for the One Person Team

L to R: Frank Cervone (Purdue University), Darlene Fichter (University of Saskatchewan), Jeff Wisniewski (University of Pittsburgh), and Marshall Breeding (Vanderbilt University and Library Technology Guides), presenters of Web Managers Academy 3.0 at CIL11.


Many attending the Computers in Libraries pre-conference session Web Managers Academy 3.0: Seamless Websites & Expanded Presence confessed to being a "one person shop."  The financial crisis of the last several years has resulted in staff cuts and resource downsizing.  What hasn't diminished are expectations.

Darlene Fichter, a librarian at the University of Saskatchewan, said, "The number one most important thing you can do if you're a solo shop is to manage your own expectations and the expectations of others."  She and the other three presenters offered these suggestions.

•      Invest time and /or money into developing a design brand. 

•      Unify your presence, carrying your brand throughout your Web presence.

•       Produce a standard style sheet that addresses all devices.

•       Manage expectations up the food chain by having a Web presence plan as a reference document.  If your   boss tells you to do B, you can respond with, “To clarify, you would like me spend 10 hours a week working on B and leave A alone for six months.”

•       Manage your own expectations by being realistic about what you can do well. 

•       Educate others as to what you can do, and what you can farm out.