Week 12 Guidelines for Designing a Good Web Site for ESL Students

This week, I've surfed the web and found an article about web design guidelines. Here is the link: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kelly-Guidelines.html

The author points out that one of those guidelines is to make your site friendly and fun to use. Its purpose is to make the site as attractive and fun as you can without making it slow. In this guideline, we need to consider two things. One is to make your pages as visually pleasing as you can without slowing them too much. How to do this? We always need to weigh "good-looking" vs. "fast-loading". We also need to remember to view the pages without images, to see how pleasing your page looks to people who don't download images and a visually pleasing text only page is also needed. The other thing we need to consider is don't annoy your visitors. Remember to ensure the visitors don't need to wait a long time for pages to download and display. Also we need to remember people don't like crowded pages, irritating color combinations, blinking text, animated images, excessive use of images and too much advertising.

Another guideline is to remember that what you think is true may not be true. Something we need to pay attention is:

1. don't assume people will enter your site through the main page.
2. even if your server is fast, not everyone will get your pages quickly.
3. don't assume all visitors using new browsers can view pages with Java and JavaScript. Some have either or both disabled in their preference settings by choice.

To conclude, I think we always need to think from the visitor's point of view. I agreed with the author that one important thing is to ensure the web pages aren't irritating. We should learn those irritating things from other websites when we find it, so we can avoid them in our pages.

Week 11 Web 2.0 – Just Hype or a Real Opportunity for the Public Sector?

For the topic of Web 2.0, I've found an article, which talks about if Web 2.0 is just a hype or a real opportunity for the public sector. The link is:
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/~/media/pressrel/may08/Web%202%200%20FINAL%20pdf.ashx

As the author mentioned in the article, Web 2.0 provides web-based services and hosted communities. So the platforms are provided, we can share on anything and anyone, with not only our friends but with hundreds of millions of other web usersand organisations globally. It also provides the opportunities for some companies to actively taking part in these conversations. Some have even created their own online communities where their customers can interact with one another and the company itself.

Besides, the author also points out that the principles behind Web 2.0 are the same as those found in most public sector organisations' mission statements. So, in Web 2.0, public sector organisations can turn into true communities of interest and align their voice with that of the public. By taking part in online conversations, these organizations can build a better picture of how they're perceived by their customers, correct misconceptions and ultimately to improve customer satisfaction through enhanced communications and service provision. And the public sector can make use of technologies to let more customers participate and to meet the needs of different communities they serve.

In my opinion, Web 2.0 seems to be an online trend when the maturity of the Internet grows. It surely can provide more services that reach more people internationally. So the companies should make good use of these services, so they can get more benefits from it.

Week 10 Key Differences between Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords

For surfing the materials of web marketing, I've found an article, which is about key differences between Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords. Here is the link:
http://searchengineland.com/key-differences-between-yahoo-search-marketing-google-adwords-11112.php

The author of the article analyzed that there're some key differences between Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords. First, both of them are different on usability issues. It's easier to navigate in Google's interface than in Yahoo's interface, since Yahoo's interface needs more clicking and needs more time to complete account related tasks. For example, advertisers are required to go to each advertisements group to make bid changes, instead of setting unique bids for multiple advertisements groups on one screen. Also, Yahoo takes slightly more time to load then Google, advertisers need to wait when they change pages frequently.

Second, both engines are different on editorial review. In fact, both of them have manual and automatic review processes. Some terms are needed to review manually while some terms can be automatically reviewed. In Yahoo!, depending on search volume and term sensitivity, so terms are manually reviewed. That means, terms are manually reviewed when they are high in search volume and have high impact. And terms are automatically reviewed when they are low in search volume and not very sensitive. Also, there is a key difference that on Google, advertisements go up on Google.com until they're manually reviewed and they're put on the entire Google network. On Yahoo!, advertisements go up on the entire network first and then are manually reviewed.

Third, they also have difference on trademark issues. In Google, in the US, advertisers can bid on trademarked keywords, but they're restricted from using trademarked terms in advertisement text. Whereas Yahoo!, advertisers are not allowed to bid on other companies' URLs or company names, regardless of trademark. However, resellers (affiliates) and non competitive information sites have some exceptions. For resellers, advertisers must be the ones who sell or facilitate the sale of trademarked product or service. For information sites, advertisers must provide substantial information about the trademark owner or its products and services, and can't sell or promote competitors' products or services. (i.e. consumer reports).

In my opinion, these engines play important roles for the marketing on the Internet. The companies and the web owners can choose and consider what engine they will use for accomplishing the purpose of marketing.