This Blog is help our GS System users learn tips and tricks that may not be covered in the tutorials and to introduce them to some of the powerful tools that they have at their command the they may have forgotten about or were not aware of.
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A Look Unique To You Many of our clients wish to have web sites that are totally unique to them. (You may have guessed, you're looking at a custom GS web site right now) The GS System easily accommodates this. In fact many of our clients have existing web site designs they don't want to change but they want all the features that come with the GS System, so, we simply save their design and add the programing necessary to make it work with the GS System and presto! they have a new GS site that looks just like their old one.
Lowering Your Cost
Because most of the advanced features people ask for are already available in the GS system, the majority of the cost of creating a new custom design is spent purely on design instead of content creation or custom programing. This lowers the cost on average by about 300% (i.e. you get a $1,500 site for about $500).
It's Not Just the Cost Aside from the cost factor, there are some other good reasons to have a GS Custom Web Site...
Global Site Systems Announces Upgrades the The GS System Page Editor
Upgrades including compatibility with all major web browsers including Safari (this should make Mac users happy), the addition of a spell checker, and a big improvement in the ease of use when managing images and linking to other pages and files within the web site. Some excellent features have also been added to make formatting your content easier t
Take a minute to look at the following tutorial that will show you how the new features work.
This is the continuation of yesterday's post from "Jakob Nielsen's 1997 article"
To measure the effect of some of the content guidelines we had identified, we developed five different versions of the same website (same basic information; different wording; same site navigation). We then had users perform the same tasks with the different sites. As shown in the table, measured usability was dramatically higher for the concise version (58% better) and for the scannable version (47% better). And when we combined three ideas for improved writing style into a single site, the result was truly stellar: 124% better usability.
Site Version
Sample Paragraph
Usability Improvement (relative to control condition)
Promotional writing (control condition) using the "marketese" found on many commercial websites
Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).
0% (by definition)
Concise text with about half the word count as the control condition
In 1996, six of the best-attended attractions in Nebraska were Fort Robinson State Park, Scotts Bluff National Monument, Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum, Carhenge, Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park.
58%
Scannable layout using the same text as the control condition in a layout that facilitated scanning
Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions that draw large crowds of people every year, without fail. In 1996, some of the most popular places were:
Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors)
Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166)
Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000)
Carhenge (86,598)
Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002)
Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).
47%
Objective language using neutral rather than subjective, boastful, or exaggerated language (otherwise the same as the control condition)
Nebraska has several attractions. In 1996, some of the most-visited places were Fort Robinson State Park (355,000 visitors), Scotts Bluff National Monument (132,166), Arbor Lodge State Historical Park & Museum (100,000), Carhenge (86,598), Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (60,002), and Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park (28,446).
27%
Combined version using all three improvements in writing style together: concise, scannable, and objective
In 1996, six of the most-visited places in Nebraska were:
It was somewhat surprising to us that usability was improved by a good deal in the objective language version (27% better). We had expected that users would like this version better than the promotional site (as indeed they did), but we thought that the performance metrics would have been the same for both kinds of language. As it turned out, our four performance measures (time, errors, memory, and site structure) were also better for the objective version than for the promotional version. Our conjecture to explain this finding is that promotional language imposes a cognitive burden on users who have to spend resources on filtering out the hyperbole to get at the facts. When people read a paragraph that starts "Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions," their first reaction is no, it's not, and this thought slows them down and distracts them from using the site.
Although this study was done a decade ago I think it's still applies today and is worth looking at...
Taken form Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for Oct 1, 1997.
How Users Read on the Web
The don't!
People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. (Update: a newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.)
As a result, Web pages have to employ scannable text, using
highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
meaningful sub-headings (not "clever" ones)
bulleted lists
one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
half the word count (or less) than conventional writing
We found that credibility is important for Web users, since it is unclear who is behind information on the Web and whether a page can be trusted. Credibility can be increased by high-quality graphics, good writing, and use of outbound hypertext links. Links to other sites show that the authors have done their homework and are not afraid to let readers visit other sites.
Users detested "marketese"; the promotional writing style with boastful subjective claims ("hottest ever") that currently is prevalent on the Web. Web users are busy: they want to get the straight facts. Also, credibility suffers when users clearly see that the site exaggerates.
The Photo Album is a great way to display pictures on your web site. They can be categorized into photo albums. For example if you took a trip to Europe you may want to organize your pictures into several different photo albums according to the country where the photos were taken. (i.e. Photos of France, Photos of Germany, Photos of Italy, Photos of Spain etc...)
You can then organize your photo albums into groups (i.e. Our European Vacation, Our Caribbean Vacation, Our Australian Vacation etc...)
There are all kinds of other uses for the photo album tool. Because it also allows you to add narrative text, links, forms, and even logos and pictures to the description area of the album it becomes a great tool for showing pictures of items you want to sell or showing off photo portfolios.
This is another one of those features that, if used with a little creative imagination, can have a multitude of uses.
Using the create newsletter feature creates beautifull formatted web pages that contain none of the usual navigation. The pages are also narrower so they can be printed without cutting off the right-hand edge of the page.
This makes them a great way to create professional looking emails for sending out things like newsletters. (I guess that's why we called it "Create Newsletter")
Below are links to the tutorials show how to create and send a newsletter.
There is a button in your GS System page editor, that many of our user have not found yet, that can really make life a lot easier when you are laying out a new page. It is the (template) button. It can take a lot of the drudgery out of laying out your page.
If you haven't used this feature before take a look at the tutorials
If you have a page layout you use often but it's not in the set of page layouts available please let us know. In most cases we will be happy to add it for you.
If your web site is an integral part of your marketing plan, you may find that running a regularly updated BLOG can yield significant results.
Depending on the topic of you blog you can use it to leverage your natural sphere of influence by talking about things that the people you see in your life outside of business are interested in. For example, are you an avid golfer, boater, or traveler, Are you involve in minor league or professional sports. Whatever you interests are there are lots of people who likely share them. If you run a blog in your web site about them you now give all of those friends and acquaintances a reason to visit your web site... and now they know what you do for a living and if they ever need your services they feel like they have a "friend in the business".
Blogs also provide a lot of content that is all organized and automatically archived to be "search engine friendly" and can really help increase the number of chances you have to be found in search engine searches.
If your content is interesting it gives people a reason to regularly visit your site to see what is new. Many people become "famous" online just because the run interesting blogs.
The GS System Blog tool makes it easy to add and maintain a blog in your GS System Web Site.
Here are the links to the tutorials that show how easy it is to set up your own Blog
This Blog is help our GS System users learn tips and tricks that may not be covered in the tutorials and to introduce them to some of the powerful tools that they have at their command the they may have forgotten about or were not aware of. 
(template) button. It can take a lot of the drudgery out of laying out your page. 