Conversations with Jeri

Here are the opening conversations with Jeri about the purpose and structure of her site. By the end of these exchanges, Jeri has a very solid idea of what she's trying to do via her personal pages.

Section 1
Pre-Lesson:  BAIT & SWITCH

At the end of the first section of this conversation, you'll hear Jeri finally ask, "OK, so what's first?"....

3/13/97: Lehua to Jeri

Jeri:

Yes, collaborative is good, but there also needs to be a leader. The tree was YOUR vision, and it would seem silly for someone else to be the leader. Gene is exactly right, the start of ANY webpage, even a frivolous one, is to think thru the intent. Who is your audience, why did they come to you, what do you want to say to them. Right now, you have 2 pages, your home page and the tree page. You can defer thinking about the intent of your site as a whole and just have a shell there to jump to the tree, and then define the remainder of your structure later. You can have the names just follow the tree, or you can have some kind of "mapping" -- like the branches of the tree, or the color of the ornaments, might represent a region, and to click there would take someone to the names for a particular region. I can do the clickability for you, once you've chosen your image.

BTW, my page on site philosophy & design has some pointers to several good tutorials and resources:
http://www.lehuanet.com/lehua/mindsite.htm

Hugs & love,
Lehua

3/14/97, Jeri to Lehua & Gene

>> And I can help with graphics if you want -- clipping, sharpening, etc., tho I suspect Jeri's probably gotten pretty good at all that. <<

HAH, I'm actually Rolling on the Floor Laughing my Butt Off here (ggg). You give me too much credit but I appreciate it, I needed a laugh today (VBG)!!!

Jeri

3/14/97, Jeri to Lehua & Gene

>> Yes, collaborative is good, but there also needs to be a leader. The tree was YOUR vision, and it would seem silly for someone else to be the leader. <<

Hmmm, I bet "Churchill" wanted to run like heck too (gg).

I agree it should be simple and not have too many graphics that takes to long to load. I like the idea of ornaments only with the 160 that we have now, it too might get out of hand, volume wise. Maybe to start a list of survivors and victims would be the best and then "think" about anything else later. The key is to get the basics ready.

I knew I was doing the right thing by "tweaking" you about our plans (gg).

OK, so what's first?

Jeri


Section 2
Pre-Lesson: Planning
Intent, Philosophy, and High-Level Structure

3/13/97, Gene to Jeri:

Give us some more thoughts on the purpose of the "Tree of Hope". Why and how it should live and grow on the net. And what it means to you and to those who are on the tree and their loved ones.

Then a few thoughts on what the page(s) should look like. Color, texture, light, graphics, etc. I am afraid my business experience may make this too formal, so you can help us make your statement come from the heart.

Let's take a little time too. I think patience here will pay off big as we go further.

Your friend,
Gene

3/14/97, Jeri to Gene:

I'm going to give your questions a little more thought rather then just off the top of my head. I think we have to try to stay as simple as possible as Lehua says but yet still get the message across.

I'll be in touch after I let some of my thoughts fly through my "airy" head (gg).

Jeri

3/14/97, Gene to Jeri:

<< I'm going to give your questions a little more thought rather then just off the top of my head.>>

Good! How is the new picture of the tree coming along?

I think the KISS rule is great too. But as I surf the web, visions of great things begin to swirl and dance in my brain.

I am looking forward to beginning after I hear more from you. I will play around this weekend with your current picture. If we want to place this in one file on this forum, it probably should be one page to begin with.

Gene

3/15/97, Jeri to Gene:

>> But as I surf the web, visions of great things begin to swirl and dance in my brain. <<

Yeah, I know, I know (gg).

Hmmm, what do you mean "it ....be one page to begin with", you mean the tree should be one separate "page on a home page"? If so, I agree. But check the other one out when it uploads and see if it's a better shot. It has a great "8 point buck" in it (gg).

I'll think this weekend on my ideas of the tree and we'll start next week, how does that sound?? You be thinking about what you need from me. With out you and Lehua as Chauffeurs, I'd be driving off a cliff!!!! (gg)

Jeri

3/15/97, Gene to Jeri:

<<you mean the tree should be one separate "page on a home page"?>>

Well there are many ways to do a web site, but two appear to be most common. (I am ignoring "frames"-too busy.) The first way is to have separate pages for each main element. Usually there is one "home page" that is the main site. All of these pages are linked together with hot links (references) that allow one to jump to each separate page. A common added element is one or more hot links to other sites and the ever present home page button.

The other way is simpler and involves having just one page for the entire site. Hot links just take you to sections further down the page. You can still have links to other sites.

If you have a simple site with few graphics, a single page will do just fine. Another benefit of a single page is that we can upload it into this forum. Anyone with a browser can then upload and view the page with some simple instructions. But a single page gets unwieldly if you have multiple ideas to express. And if there are lots of graphics, it can be frustrating to download.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that we can start with a single page. But, depending on what your vision is, it can easily be divided into multiple pages as it grows or makes sense. When I say easily, I mean it. A matter of minutes, unless we go crazy with different backgrounds and formats.

I think next week is great time to start. I await your commands, my liege!

Gene

3/15/97, Jeri to Gene:

>> one or more hot links to other sites and the ever present home page button. <<

OK, Gotcha, I've visited enough home pages to know what you're talking about. Yes, I would think the tree would either be on the main "home page" and then hop via a link to the names, etc. or just a somewhat plain home page that links to a picture of the tree. I'm kind of a meat and potatoes person and when I go to a home page I like to find what I'm looking for quickly and easily with no link after link to get where I want to go.

>> The other way is simpler and involves having just one page for the entire site. Hot links just take you to sections further down the page.<<

Yes, I've seen these and like them. Once I figured out that I didn't even have to hit the link but scroll down the page that's usually how I got to where I wanted to go. I don't think, at least for now, we want anything complicated but rather something simple but yet gets the point across. If it gets to complicated we'll chase away people who really do want to just see the tree. We're not trying to sell something but instead maybe bring hope and pleasure to people, so to me simple is best.

>>it can easily be divided into multiple pages as it grows... <<

Again, I agree I think for now simple is better. Not everyone is computer literate so the simpler we make it the easier it is for everyone. So let's do start with one page, if we find we can add more later, we'll (notice how I say "WE"--gg) worry about it then!!

>>I await your commands, my liege! <<

Dang, I'm impressed, wow, my own kingdom (gggg). Hmmm I didn't know Jesters had their own kingdom!!!!

OK, I'll still work on the "theme" the next couple of days and get back with you. I still want you and Lehua and anyone else that has comments to hop in here with ideas. No matter what this is for "everyone" and I want no one to feel left out--Kinda of like a class project!!!

Jeri

3/16/97, Jeri to Lehua:

>>>I think next week is great time to start<< Nope. Let's do it today. <<

Geez, what a "taskmaster" (ggg)--Crack that whip!!!

>> Eventually you will want to have many pages branching off your central page<<

OK, Gene was just talking about this with me also, and we were thinking that for now maybe we just start with "one page" with links to let people hop down farther on the page, what do you think? Start simple and then make it more complicated as things come up?

<<Next, you want to download the HPwiz/HPpub stuff>>

OH, OH, now we're getting complicated, I can smell the smoke from here (gg). I think Gene is handling this part (gg).

<<Next, you decide whether you want to use an HTML editor or not... I chose not to, I use Notebook at work, and WordPad at home.>>

Would Word for Windows work?

Love, Jeri (Having nightmares of Web Pages Attacking)

3/15/97, Lehua to Jeri:

Jeri:

>>when I go to a home page I like to find what I'm looking for quickly and easily<<

Yes, exactly. My homepage is divided into only 6 gateways (Family & Loved Ones, Creative Spirit, Work, Nature & Freedom, Heritage, and Life & Death). The home page tells where everything is. Your site could have your family, cancer links, the Tree, whatever, and a person could link to whatever from your Home.

For now, the exercises will only get the tree & home built. As it gets more complex, you would need branches off of branches. For example, your family page could have branches into photo albums. My philosophy is to keep only stuff of mainstream interest on the 6 main pages, with very few graphics, and making all others to be branches off of the main pages, especially graphics-heavy stuff like photo albums, since a lot of people don't want to have to download a lot of stuff just to see the basics.

For the Tree page, we could perhaps have a picture of the tree, followed by the names. If you wanted, we could perhaps divide by region, or by name, or whatever makes sense to you, so a viewer could jump around the page to a particular section. I will help with whatever way you want to work it.

Have you done your first page yet? How does it look? Once you get it written we will do a background & stuff.

Hugs & love,
Lehua

3/16/97, Jeri to Lehua:

Also, another thought I've been hashing over. How exactly will people here on the forum access the page? Can anyone who has compuserve access find it and how simple for them will it be?

Also, This homepage we'll be doing, is it a real "internet" homepage or just something here on compuserve? See, I am illiterate when it comes to this stuff!!

Hugs,
Jeri

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