We have been doing a lot of research and testing over the past few months to help in our re-design of OurTown.com. We have talked with people, studied competitors sites and studied how people in general use the Internet. We have found that "simple" is the key ingredient for success!
We have found that the less steps it takes to input data, the more people will want to participate with the site. That
is why we are cutting down steps on the contribution of all forms of media. On the new site you will have one place to go to input stories, photos, videos, events, and PDFs. Once you decide what type of media you are contributing you will only have a one step process. You will just enter in what media it is that you wish to submit to the editor and simply click OK. Our system will take care of the rest!We have also found the the less time it takes for our viewers to find what they are looking for, the more likely it is for them to come back! We have taken our site and added simple icons for the different types of media you would like to view and paired it with a list of categories and search. Now I know most of you are saying 'well yea that is how its suppose to be",but many sites make it more complicated to find exactly what you are looking for. Example: You are a student looking for a picture of a building burned down in a little neighborhood. You simply go to the neighborhood and click on the photos tab. Once within this tab you can either search the categories for buildings or you can do a search on that building. Most sites will give you many different forms of media on this story and maybe not a picture, where a picture is the only type of media that you would receive from our site.
These are two very vague design elements that are going into the production of our new site. We are going simple where it seems everyone else is going complex!
Your OurTown SuperHero,
Chris
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