1996 Web Site (Cont.)

During the course of development I made a lot of changes to the design. I changed the navigation controls, and added a non-Shocked version that served as the primary site with the option to turn Shockwave on if the user desired.

I asked for and received a lot of feedback during this process. I was very concerned about designing a site that would be easy to use. During the process I asked about fifty of my close friends, repeat customers and industry contacts to review what I had created, much of what I got back was very eye opening. Here is a sample of some of the feedback that I asked for during this process:

Don Synstelien wrote:
>Hey chris, I'm updating my web site and moving it to www.synfonts.com. >in the meantime take a look at it (there are holes)
>and let me know what you think.

…Well, it is really hard to navigate. It took me some time to get back to the first page. Perhaps adding some text links at the end of each page would help. I think that the side frame with the letter browser is neat, but you might want to explain what it is, and does. It took me a while to figure out that you could scroll through your stuff.

I really hate frames, but you have done a good job with them here. Do you have a no frames site? If not you really NEED to. …60% of surfers prefer no-frames…. Also, have a link to the no-frames site on your main page.

Have you ever done Dynamic.Images in JavaScript? It is really easy and boy does it look cool. I will send you a URL about the code if you wish. This could help your font 'remote' on the left.

Some of your tables look strange. I am using Netscape 3.0.... Your Shockwave stuff is HUGE, try showing a picture and letting people know that there is a Shockwave version available. The ScannerZ file took 5 minutes to download! Take a look at some of the Foundry reviews I did for the ITFI. I used Shockwave on them.

Finally, add www.SynFonts.com to ALL the pages, maybe a graphic in the top frame or something. I think that it really needs to be on all pages. People could come to your site from wherever, let them know where they are.

Anyway, them is my thoughts. I really dig the colors you use, and I always have. Very earthy. Your text is great, but the centering is hard to read, have you tried <blockquote>'s? Oh yeah, your new font ROCKS!

As you can see, when I got this letter I still had a long way to go. I had left out many important things, like secondary text navigation at the bottom of the page.

The end result functioned pretty well, but it fell far short of what I was after in terms of creating a small, easy-to-use type-viewing engine. But for the time, it wasn't bad and was far more robust than any other type web site that I had seen.

I went ahead and uploaded the new site in late 1996. The idea of what a "professional" web site consisted of was changing and AOL had started to get a bad reputation, and I started to wonder if the association was good for the site. So at the same time, I acquired the domain www.synfonts.com. The move to a different server also allowed me the opportunity to start looking at user logs to determine the success or failure of any changes that I made.

In hindsight, I wish that I had first uploaded my old site design before the update because I could have more accurately tracked what the changes I had made meant. But the ability to start tracking was a good enough addition by itself. But when I started to analyze the information that I did receive, I learned a couple of things about the site:

1. The plug-in, while small, didn't receive a lot of use. This isn't surprising considering that I had moved it to secondary status on the site, but still a bit depressing. I had thought that people would jump at the chance to look at type in detail but they didn't.

2. I was losing a lot of traffic to the Macromedia site. Of course, this made sense also. There was a prominent badge on my homepage that immediately told people that they were to go away and visit another site in order to use mine. Not only that but they might have to restart their browser! This was pretty bad for keeping people on my site.

In 1996 and 1997 the plug-in install process was not at all as advanced as it is today. People would practically have to shut their computers down and do a rain dance in order to get a plug-in installed correctly. By placing a link so prominently on my home page and providing the opportunity for people to leave and experience the plug-in process before they might get to my content, I was contributing highly to my own demise.

1996 Web Site
Usability: the Site Speaks For Itself
1997 Web Site and Interactive Catalog