Effective Web Pages for Libraries

What makes an effective, usable web site? Come spend the day with a creative web designer, Liz Bushey (http://www.elizabethbushey.com), to practice and learn about effective web pages. Liz will cover usability; accessibility; design and graphics; as well as sound and animation in this full day program. Usability (how people really work the Web) and accessibility (whether they can get to your site or not) are two of the most important and interesting issues that Liz follows. She has conducted usability studies for Orange County Community College, and all her clients’ web sites, large and small, are built to be universally accessible. In this class, Liz will go over how to conduct a usability test, what to look for, what questions to ask -- or rather, how to format the questions you want to ask to get the results you need, and most of all, how to LISTEN. Liz will also discuss accessibility -- what it really means, what the government means, and how planning it out from the beginning is best, but also what you can do to "back it into" an existing site.

Photo by Tom Bushey

Design and Graphics --What makes good design? What if you're not a designer? What, if, say, you're a librarian instead? Wouldn't it be great to have 5-10 tips from a designer to follow when creating pages? For instance: did you know that when you create a visual piece, you should have one item on it that is at least twice as big as the next biggest thing? That creates a "visual point of entry." Even pieces as visually crowded as USA Today follow this rule. If everything is the same size, users don't know where to begin to look. That biggest thing should be your most important item, too. Critical thinking skills come into play when designing a web page.

Effective Web Pages for Libraries
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Location: SENYLRC
Fees:
$50.00 - Library staff from SENYLRC member libraries
$55.00 - Library staff from members of member library systems (MHLS, RCLS, school libraries)
$60.00 - Library staff from libraries outside the Southeastern region

Registration: http://reg.senylrc.org/index.html

If you have any questions, please call SENYLRC at 845-691-2734.

Southeastern News Online is published bi-monthly by SENYLRC staff.