The developers here at Hom-Web.Org are by no means experts at the art of web design. In fact, everything we know has either been found on the internet, or learned by trial and error after taking a few basic college courses. Our "keep it simple" approach to the design process has been derived from hundreds of hours spent studying articles about how things work, testing to find out what works well, and then searching for more resources with the goal of making it work better. What we found was that most of these efforts were a waste of time.

In spite of that revelation, however, we have identified several key concerns common among top level design gurus, marketing analysts, and standards organizations. Largely these concerns fit into four categories:

• Planning
• Conformity to Standards
• Usability
• Security

Building a business web site is not as easy as it looks and planning is a very important part of the development process. Everything, from fonts and color schemes, to navigation and form processing, must be carefully considered. The same is true for informational or educational sites.

Using the web to expose your services or products to a larger audience is a desirable option. But first ask yourself, am I prepared for an increase in orders or job calls? What changes do I need to make to improve response times. Before we even begin to design a web presence some of the more basic questions we should answer are:

• Why do we need a Web Site?
• Are we able to expand?
• Is our target market locally or globally based?
• Who are our competitors
• What makes our product or service different from that of the other guy?
• How do we turn these differences into an advantage?
• Based upon this information what is our marketing strategy?

In cases where the bottom line of your business is affected. Consider both the possibilities and the drawbacks. The inclusion of a website, if locally oriented and advertized, can be an asset. Offering 24/7/365 access to your current customers could be very good for business. Expanding on the other hand, may require additional capital, staff, training, and time.

Do you need an Amazon style virtual storefront or a simple local promotion site? We consider local as being within an hours drive of your shop or office. A local business can be advertized conventionally and still perform well. The amazon style global site requires advanced marketing strategies, huge databases, secure datacenters, and an extremely vigilant administration team. Does your business still want a web presence?

On a business website Usability and Content directly relates to its bottom line. An informational site should provide easy access to their information. Distractions such as flash intros, too many ads and pop up windows or images that take forever to load chase clients away. See the section on Usability. There are also several sites related to page content andsearch engine marketing. One of our favorites is SitePro News.

As we work with you to build your web presence there will be many issues such as these to consider. The goal of our planning sessions is to avoid the typical problems of rapid expansion by adopting a "think globally act locally" approach. Setting short term goals for growth and expanding gradually in proportion your capacity to meet the needs of your clients. Adapting your business to include new technologies and attract new clients is something to think about.

With regard to the remaining questions on our list we've collected the small sampling of articles related to Internet Marketing and eBusiness planning shown below. Mr Sullivans' article provides a most useful planning guide. While Dr. Wilsons', though written in 1998, is both relevent and insightful. We hope you agree..

• The Small Business Advisor- Why you need a Website by Robert Sullivan.
• Internet marketing strategies and techniques by Shelley Lowery.
• Internet Marketing Strategy articles at About.com.
• Internet Marketing Strategies and Ideas at KnowThis.com.
• 7 Debilitating Diseases of Business Websites (and their cures) by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson.
• Web Marketing Today
• E-Business How-To Guides. at www.entrepreneur.com.

A while back we found out that our site does not conform to W3C guidelines.  Everything seemed to be working pretty well on the big three browsers, so we cried, and then did a little research.  Although we advocate universal adoption of the more refined code structures of XHTML and CSS2 and respect those who have worked to establish these guidelines. We found that Yahoo, our bank, and The White House didn't validate either.

At that point we decided to stick with creating usable working web pages for a while longer. With the understanding that we will adapt eventually. In fact, most of the code in these pages has been updated to valid html 4.01 strict. As always, a learning curve is inevitable, and somehow I think we're smart enough to learn as we go. We can always re-define the structure and modify the coding as our skills improve. Until then we prefer to keep it simple.

You may have noticed that our gallery is designed using frames.  Many developers and web standards organizations have depreciated this method of organizing content.  We adopted the use of frames for the gallery pages for two reasons.  The first being that it is a simple method for creating uniform structure compatible with Netscape, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.  The second is because we simply just don't know enough about how to work with some of the more complicated code syntax.

Our use of framed pages is designed to provide a working example of the right tool for organizing an otherwise overwhelming project when you're not up to date. A centralized navigation frame allows content to be added or changed without having to edit the individual menus in 100 files. Display styles are modified via the use of external cascading style sheets (CSS) which create a uniform look and feel throughout the entire site from a single source file. The back office work was reduced significantly.

As suggested in our Introduction. A web site should first be designed to reflect the needs of the user.  If I browse to a business website looking for information about a product or service. My expectation is that I will be able to find it easily and not have to burrow through 10 pages of irrelevent information to find one item. The same is true for things like slow loading flash intros, broken links, or a bad navigation scheme. Lately, if I even see a flash intro, I look elsewhere because obviously this business is only interested in wasting my time..

According to the experts. A usable site is one which conforms to accessibility standards for the disabled, provides consistant navigation throughout, disseminates information in a clear concise manner, and limits distractions or embellishments to non-essential areas. Putting this in perspective. A Usable site moves the user from point A to point B by the most direct route possible. Point B being the sale of a service or product, an exchange of information, or any other process which entertains or benefits the user.

Nobody likes a site where they have to guess what its about. We've all been to a few where you have to select the text before you could even see it. And even more where all you see is some barely readable text with a bunch of image placeholder symbols scattered about. And then there are the guestbooks or forums that don't exist, or the external link that leads to a search page instead of the interesting site you thought you found.

• Consider the needs of your clients, veiwers, members, and guests in all things.
• If you want my business don't use flash or hide your products where I can't find them.
• Optimize pages and images as if everyone were still using a 28.8 modem.
• Provide a navigation scheme that is both relevent and Obvious.
• If you want me to read something make sure its readable.
• Check the links to other areas of your site, including images and external sites, often.

Business or Information sites should follow the Usability guidlines closely because it affects their bottom line. On the other hand. There are exceptions to the rules. Sites designed as multimedia centers, personal pages, or novelty sites can basically do what they like, within reason. It's a good idea to provide some clarity and readabilty even on these sites because, hopefully, the object of your efforts is to get people to visit. And that folks is the essence of site usability.

Learn more about Web Usability at  Web Reference or the Usability First Website Design Page. Or at the site of usability guru  Jacob Neilson.  For examples of really bad site design visit our featured links in this section.

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Website Security Information

CERT Coordination Center CERT is a center of internet security expertise, located at the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon University. We study internet security vulnerabilities, research long-term changes in networked systems, and develop information and training to help you improve security.

The SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute. SANS is the most trusted and by far the largest source for information security training and certification in the world. It also develops, maintains, and makes available at no cost, the largest collection of research documents about various aspects of information security, and it operates the Internet's early warning system - Internet Storm Center.

Security Tips for Apache Server Configuration Some hints and tips on security issues in setting up a web server. Some of the suggestions will be general, others specific to Apache.

The World Wide Web Security FAQ at www.w3.org