Envisioning healthy congregations
engaged in effective

Christian Ministry
locally AND globally.

Ideas for Your Web Page

How do you know what the user needs unless you ask?

Why do I ask people who have used the web site what they think of it? What does it need to add? What does it need to lose? Why do I ask those I find have never used it to look it over and answer the same questions?

My answer is in 4 words: to better serve users.

4 ways to engage users

1. Discuss the page as a group. Listen well without defensiveness. Coach our critic.
2. Discuss the page with an individual. Listen well without defensiveness. Coach your critic.
3. Use the statistics that your server compiles about who uses what on your site.
4. Use the statistics that an indexing service compiles about who is searching for what on your site.

Discuss the page as a group.

The Great Rivers web site is not the result of any one individual's work, it is a team effort. The site is nearly always reviewed each month by the whole staff and all staff have license to call or email the team leader at any time to correct an error that has come to light as they have used the site. Nearly everyone - administrative and program staff - are responsible for a part of the site following training in design and software.

There are several advantages to this.

First we all grow in discernment. Since the information on the site goes out to the whole world, this is a must. There is information that should never be posted. (Look to our Privacy Policy.)

 

Second, There is so much going on in the GRR that one person could not do it alone and still get the rest of the tasks of the job description done.

 

Third, many minds intentionally addressing an idea will almost always sharpen the idea and make it better and better for others' use. We are blessed in this region to have an Executive Minister who asks that our Lord use us as a team combining strengths and offsetting weaknesses.

Discuss the page with an individual...many individuals.

Unless I had received a couple of phone calls from ministers in this region, a gliche would have continued to be a barrier to some users. However, one should use discernment in what is suggested. Every concern expressed should not find its way into the web design or the substance. Prayer is a must.. Knowing the vision, purpose, and goals of your organization/church is a must. Listening to individuals can lead to better design, more helpful substance, and best of all more usefulness for more people.

Use the statistics about users who have visited your site.

Your web hosting service may have statistics available that have been compiled on a daily, weekly, and monthly term. Obtain these (often by download) and study them.

• pages most often visited
• least visited
• ones users tried to visit but couldn't get there

Use the statistics about what users searched for on your site.

I suggest that you find a free or low cost indexing service. On the GRR site, this service offers users the ability to type in a term or word and "pull up" every occurrence of that term/word on the GRR site. (there are 900 MB of data on the GRR site. Use the search function. It saves some work.) Along with the indexing service, there is another benefit. The service keeps statistics of most often searched for words, phrases, and terms. Once you know what users are looking for, you can then decide if it is appropriate to put that information on the site. Again, prayerful discernment is needed.

Few of us are able to alone make a great site. Many of us know what needs to be on the site, but may not know how to build an optimum design. Others of us could sculpt an on-line equivalent of Michaelangelo's David, but have only a few ideas as to what to post. We need each other. Sound familiar? It should, Jesus calls it the Church.

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