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Attracting and retaining an audience on the Web requires the skills of a playwright, and like a good playwright, you have to be able to skillfully combine three inseparable elements: Content, structure, and relevance.
Content is one of the hot buzzwords of the new millennium. Without content, your site can be aptly described by MacBeth's despairing lament: 'A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' (Substitute 'Flash and Shockwave' for 'sound and fury' and you've got the picture.) Despair describes the second of these three components, because if you don't create a site structure that helps people find all that fine content you've created, they'll give up and go elsewhere--or go mad with the effort of searching, with results every bit as tragic for your job prospects as 'the Scottish play' is reputed to be for actors. And the part about 'signifying nothing'? If the content that visitors do eventually find isn't relevant to their needs, they're not going to come back any more than Lady MacBeth will.
View all 131 works by Hart, Geoffrey J.S.
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Content, Structure, and Relevance: The Ploy's the Thing
http://www.geoff-hart.com/resources/2001/theploy.htm
Hart, Geoffrey J.S.
TECHWR-L
2001
Abstract: Attracting and retaining an audience on the Web requires the skills of a playwright, and like a good playwright, you have to be able to skillfully combine three inseparable elements: Content, structure, and relevance.
Content is one of the hot buzzwords of the new millennium. Without content, your site can be aptly described by MacBeth's despairing lament: 'A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' (Substitute 'Flash and Shockwave' for 'sound and fury' and you've got the picture.) Despair describes the second of these three components, because if you don't create a site structure that helps people find all that fine content you've created, they'll give up and go elsewhere--or go mad with the effort of searching, with results every bit as tragic for your job prospects as 'the Scottish play' is reputed to be for actors. And the part about 'signifying nothing'? If the content that visitors do eventually find isn't relevant to their needs, they're not going to come back any more than Lady MacBeth will.
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