Is the Professional Look Really Better?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Stephen Horrillo
  • Start date Start date
I like to promise delivery on friday, then actually deliver on thursday - oh wow...you're done already! :-)
 
And lo, Jim Cheshire (JIMCO) didst speak in
microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster:
I didn't ask if my site looked amateurish. I was telling you that I
developed my site (the layout of it) in FrontPage and it does not look
amatuerish.
Click to expand...

That's the power of positive thinking!

Grey
 
And lo, Stephen Horrillo didst speak in
microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster:
Could you convert what you said to "webdesign for dummie's" lingo? :)
Click to expand...

Put ads on each site. Whichever makes the most money wins.

However, if more people are clicking on your ads, doesn't that mean your
content isn't interesting enough?

Grey
 
And lo, Stephen Horrillo didst speak in
microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster:
It seems that the more
professional the look, in other words the farther you stray away from
shared
borders and templates, the harder it is to make global changes to the
site.
Click to expand...

*That* is why you fail.

Unless you're a patent beginner, "look" has nothing to do with the site's
administrative interface.

See Mark Parnell's reply, follow the links, become enlightened.

Grey
 
And lo, Steve Easton didst speak in
microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster:
Kill the theme and start with a new blank page, and then you will be a
"designer."
Click to expand...

In only the most general sense of the term. Any WYSIWYG webpage designing
software makes a lot of decisions *for* you, because it tries to guess
what you want to do and do it the way it knows best.

FP and DW are great for getting a quick start. They almost invariably
make for a lousy finish.

Grey
 
I completely disagree with the lousy finish part. Again, it's the user that
makes the start and the finish. A good, experienced user will be able to
use either of those tools to make a site that is nearly HTML authoring tool
agnostic. For example, on my site (http://www.great-web-sights.com), were
it not for the dead giveaway template markup, you would not be able to tell
which authoring system I used, including Notepad.

Or is that covered by the almost invariably part?
 
Stephen Horrillo said:
I created two versions of the same basic information. One in Front Page, one
with Mambo. I showed both to a few people and they seem to like the
"amateurish" Front Page version over the Mambo one. I got comments like "the
FP one is less threatening" it's easier to navigate," "easier on the eyes."
I'm new to this but it makes me wonder if IN PRACTICE if a very basic
website isn't better. My FP site is at http://www.brokeragenttraining.com
the Mambo site is at http://www.brokeragenttraining.com/CMS. I personally
would feel more comfortable doing business with someone with the Mambo type
site but that's not the real life feedback I'm getting so far.
Click to expand...

IMHO...you need to evaluate the site, not the tool you used to create it.
Many "webmasters" scoff at anyone that uses FP. FP is in my toolset, but
it's not my only tool.

When you look at a house to purchase do you what kind of hammer they used?
 
GreyWyvern said:
And lo, Jim Cheshire (JIMCO) didst speak in
microsoft.public.frontpage.client,alt.www.webmaster:


That's the power of positive thinking!
Click to expand...

Only if you believe that thinking it so makes it so.

--
Jim Cheshire
JIMCO
http://www.jimcoaddins.com

Now offering templates ranging from
affordable standard templates to
powerful e-commerce applications!
 
GreyWyvern said:
However, if more people are clicking on your ads, doesn't that mean
your content isn't interesting enough?
Click to expand...

Not at all! Is there such thing as a Web site with content so interesting
that no one ever leaves it? Don't think so.

--
Jim Cheshire
JIMCO
http://www.jimcoaddins.com

Now offering templates ranging from
affordable standard templates to
powerful e-commerce applications!
 
Stephen Horrillo said:
I created two versions of the same basic information.
Click to expand...

No, you didn't. One version is fairly unfriendly, with bullet points,
stock photography, and content the first-time user doesn't care about
(polls, login, rss, etc.). The other version uses more descriptive
prose and gives the first-time user useful content (upfront pricing,
contact info, appointment form). The issue isn't FP vs. Mambo
technology, or which particular template looks more "professional".
It's about content winning over presentation.
 
GreyWyvern said:
FP and DW are great for getting a quick start. They almost invariably
make for a lousy finish.
Click to expand...

That statement is just so wrong on so many levels that I don't know where to
start. In fact, it's so wrong that I don't really think I need to refute
it.

I've seen plenty of such posts from people who wander through this
newsgroup. In most cases, they are made by people who don't use FrontPage
but yet spend their time in this group for some unknown reason. They are
usually Web design snobs who think of themselves as being ultimately greater
in wisdom than any simpleton using FrontPage.

Are you one of those? :)

--
Jim Cheshire
JIMCO
http://www.jimcoaddins.com

Now offering templates ranging from
affordable standard templates to
powerful e-commerce applications!
 
Hey, what's the world's record for the longest-running newsgroup thread? I
think we may have a contender!

--

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Neither a follower nor a lender be.
 
Kevin said:
Hey, what's the world's record for the longest-running newsgroup
thread? I think we may have a contender!
Click to expand...

I doubt it. Last year I belonged to the Association of Shareware
Professionals and we would often see threads so long in our private
newsgroups that OE would generate an error everytime you posted. LONG
threads!

--
Jim Cheshire
JIMCO
http://www.jimcoaddins.com

Now offering templates ranging from
affordable standard templates to
powerful e-commerce applications!
 
yes, mine is, i never leave it and i never show it to anyone :-)
 
Stephen said:
Look, isn't the whole idea of a program like Front Page to make it so
that even a novice can create a professional looking site?
Click to expand...

I can't say what the "whole idea" of Frontpage is as I didn't invent
Frontpage.

But I can say that any program that starts of with the whole idea that
even a novice can create a professional site is doomed to failure.

A copy of Photoshop will not make you the next Leonardo da Vinci; a copy
of Word won't make you the next William Shakespeare; and a copy of
Frontpage will not make you a genius webmaster.
 
I have seen demo
sites (for themes) made with 2 different methods - FP and Dreamweaver, and

they were virtually identical. Anyone can make a bad site with any
software.
That is not a reflection on the software.
Click to expand...

What is a reflection on the software is how much time the learning curve is
to get to the point where the site looks good. If it takes a design dummy
like me 20 hours of learning to obtain professional results on FP but it
takes 10 hours on Dreamweaver and only an 1 hour on Mambo, then it IS the
software that's responsible.

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: www.over100percent.com
 
Stephen said:
Is the Professional Look Really Better?
Click to expand...

No, of course not. The concept that a web page should look professional is
just a conspiracy by web designers to make sure that they always have work.
Most people just want something bright and cheerful. I suggest that you get
a young child to design the site with crayons on craft paper, scan each page
in and save them as high quality jpegs, and post these to your site instead.
 
FrontPage was not designed to "just" use themes. Themes are just an
option.
If you used a theme you didn't "design" anything, you just used an
automated process which severely
limited your options.
Kill the theme and start with a new blank page, and then you will be a
"designer."
Click to expand...

You're right. The light finally went on! The themes in FP are sucker bait.
:)

--
Warmest regards,

Stephen Horrillo, Realtor / C.Ht.
For MLS & Computer Training: www.BrokerAgentTraining.com
Realtors Earn Over 100% at EXIT: www.over100percent.com
 
What do you actually know, or "learn" about Mambo?

It seems to me that what you did was load up the program, pick a theme, and
write the text to go into the blank spots. I could do that with any 3 of
those programs.

It is what the learning curve is when you need to change things in some
major way that counts. I have not tried Mambo except to read over the docs
for it, but I do know that to really use either FP or Dreamweaver
effectively for "ground up" web design, it is more than 10 or 20 hours. And
I suspect that the same is true of Mambo.

Try designing a single page website from the ground up with Mambo. I am
guessing that no matter how good Mambo is or is not, you will end up
spending more than one hour.
[/QUOTE]
 

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