T h e   k a r a h o . c o m   w e b s i t e   d e s i g n

N e w s:

    Oct 21st, 1:34 a.m.

  • First working draft. Both design ideas were incorporated into a first version of the site.
    The user has an entrance, from which he can access the site
    via text-link or graphic.
    The content area of the site needs to be different than the
    "static" navigation/title elements; I am working on it.

    • Oct 14th, 0:02 a.m.

  • Another draft added. This time, I am playing around with the background colors
    as the visitor is immediately presented with some content, as opposed to the
    other version, where there was simply a menu to choose from.

    • Oct 13th, 9:21 p.m.

  • The first draft is now on-line. There are currently no links on the page,
    the final version would (of course) allow visitors to click on any of the keywords.
  

0. overview

  1. Illustrating all the graphical enhancements of the site
  2. Explaining the reasons why things should be changed
  3. Showing different alternatives that are better in design
  4. Listing all requirements for the site

For any questions, please e-mail

sfabel@gmx.net
 
 

1. graphical enhancements

Right now, the karaho.com website consists of several different graphics, which all server their purpose well, just not for the web.
The navigational graphics are slow to load, because they are unoptimized for the web, which makes the browsing experience extremely slow - at least slower than it would have to be.

Possible fields of optimization would be:

  • reducing color depth in all images
  • reducing the number of files used within the site to the minimum
  • using proper file formats (such as JPEG and GIF or even PNG)

 t o p
 

2. reasons for change

The web-community, which grows each year rapidly, is a increasingly attractive crowd of people for every business. Exposing a Karate system on the web not only makes sense, but also represents the system in public, 24 hours a day, every day.
Therefore, the design and functionality of the site is crucial to the first impression of possible students. By 2002, 21.9 million kids ages 6 to 12 will be online - twice the number today. Chinese Kara-Ho Kempo Karate should be ready for the next millennium.

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3. design alternatives

There are several different approaches toward a new webdesign for karaho.com.

  • use the colors gold, red and black, as they are important colors within the system.
  • get rid of bandwidth expensive graphics, such as the headlines - use stylesheet - designed headlines instead.
  • use the interactivity of JavaScript to enhance the navigational user interface, while ensuring navigational stability in case the client has it disabled.
  • using optimized JPEG pictures for a fast possibility of having a picture gallery.

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4. requirements

Goal of the final design is to make the complete website less than 211k big, so that even slow modem connections still can display the pages reasonably fast.
To fasten download times, two different approaches are being taken:

  1. concentrate common pieces of the site that are needed on every page, such as the user interface, or the use of a separate stylesheet file which is dynamically linked into every page.
  2. reducing content to the minimal, while still informing the visitor to the site, using technologies that allow displaying pictures one at a time, instead of all at once, therefore bloating up the page.

Remaining questions are:

  • can we use SSI (server side includes)?
  • is it possible to use CGI on the server?
  • whatever your input towards these guidelines are, I would like to know
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