Elevator Speeches for Web Sites (was: Logical Linearized Order on a Page)

At 09:32 AM 8/26/2000 , Ian Jacobs wrote:
>Please make a suggestion. Would a one-sentence summary such as
>the following help?
>    "The World Wide Web Consortium was created in October 1994 
>     to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by
>     developing common protocols that promote its evolution 
>     and ensure its interoperability"

Yes!  Exactly!

I struggled with this on various pages of my own design, including
the HTML Writers Guild's and idyllmtn.com, until I realized that 
the brief, one-sentence site introduction is not some clumsy
hack to be avoided, but actually a very important usability (and
thus accessibility tool) in explaining what a site is for.  It's
the equivalent of the 15-second "elevator speech" suggested by
some marketing coaches.  (In which you are asked to summarize
what your company does in the time it takes to ride an elevator
with a stranger.)

Thus, the important answer to "what is the HWG?" is right there
in text, "The HTML Writers Guild is the world's largest
international organization of Web authors with over 117,000
members in more than 150 nations worldwide.
Our unique community provides resources, support, representation,
and education for web authors at all skill levels."

Idyll Mountain Internet identifies itself with "Idyll Mountain
Internet is a Fullerton, California web design and hosting
company founded in 1995 by Liz and Kynn Bartlett."

I think that a sentence summary is going to be useful for 
nearly anyone viewing the page, and if you have a mostly-text
page anyway, there's no reason not to include it.  (On a 
graphics-heavy site, it may present more of a challenge.)


-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                       http://kynn.com/
Director of Accessibility, Edapta                  http://www.edapta.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
AWARE Center Director                         http://www.awarecenter.org/
Vote for Liz for N. Am. ICANN Nominee!        http://www.khyri.com/icann/

Received on Saturday, 26 August 2000 15:28:18 UTC