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What Makes a Great Theatre Web Site?Dateline: 13th April, 1998 Note : Many of the sites mentioned in this article have vanished or changed totally since it was first written. The points made, however, remain valid! Just what is that makes a theatre Web site great? That's the question to which all theatre Webmasters would like an answer. It's also (probably) a question for which there is no single answer, because visitors want different things from the sites they visit. So, as one who is never averse to attempting the impossible (I am a teacher, after all!), may I invite you to join me in in cogitating on this intractable problem? First and foremost, a great site has to provide us with the information we need. That's true whether it's a show site, one devoted to an actor, a publicity site for a theatre, or any other kind. Information is what the Net is all about and, if posts to the various theatre newsgroups are any indication, more and more people are expecting to find everything on the Web. The oft-seen replies to many questions suggest that the questioner looks up the words library or bookshop in a dictionary, but this doesn't deter people from asking. You would think this answer is too obvious to state, but there are a remarkable number of sites which offer little or no information. If you think that's unbelievable, try this Cats (No! that isn't a mistake! - the site has now gone) site, which consists of nothing but pictures and an ad for a snail-mail newsletter - or rather, don't try it now (after July '98) because it's no longer online! Or you could try this Les Mis page (which will serve as, perhaps, the finest example of what a theatre page ought not to be!). Be warned: it's difficult to access at times. It's a huge download and Geocities can get very, very busy! Tone But it's not just the information that matters, it's also the tone of its presentation. There's nothing worse than, as a serious theatre lover, going to a site and finding it couched in terms which are gushing, embarrassing or even patronising. To see what I mean, have a look at this Grease page which tries so hard to be hip that it is positively offensive! You might also like to look at the Guest Book on this Colin Firth site. If you're a Firth lover, you'll probably love it too, but if you're a more general theatregoer, you will probably find the language gushing and a bit OTT. However it's a model of restraint in comparison to the Donny Osmond as Joseph site, which most will find nauseating in its adulation! Design Design makes a difference. If the author gets it wrong, then people are put off reading the material, which could be a great shame for it may be of great value. To see what I mean, go to the National Student Drama Festival site. The design here is diabolical, and yet the site is useful and interesting. (Note: this has changed since the article was written.)Some thoughtless design can actually make reading the information difficult. The official Citizens Theatre site is one such. Frames, which can be useful aids to navigating a site, are used so badly here that, if there are more than three or four normal length sentences on a page, you have to scroll to read them - and that is a real pain! All the info you need is there, but the site's designers have made reading it so damned difficult that, unless you are really dedicated (or are reviewing the site!), you just make "sod this for a game of soldiers" noises and move off somewhere else. On the other hand, there are some designers who seem to believe that having to scroll at all is wrong, and so they plan their pages so that the info just fills the screen, and then you have to click another link to read the next bit. now, I don't know about you, but I would much rather scroll down a few screenfulls of information than have to keep clicking - and waiting - for a new page to load. Now personally I don't mind scrolling through screenfulls of information, but I do object to scrolling through tiny frames or having to click on numerous links to read more than half a dozen or so sentences. An important part of design is navigation. If navigation through a site is difficult, then it is not "user-friendly" and visitors will be put off. The major navigation fault which is most common is the lack of internal links: you can't press forward through the site but have to keep clicking on your browser's BACK button to return you to the first page, so as to then click on the next page you want to see. I'm sure everyone has come across a number of these sites, so I'll not labour the point! Java, Javascript, DHTML et al I read two Net magazines regularly, Internet Magazine and .net, so as to keep up with developments on the Web, and there I read all about Java, Javascript, DHTML, Shockwave, ReadAudio, and all the other technological developments aimed at making the "Web experience" more enjoyable and interactive. Oh wow! a picture that slides across your screen! a button that changes colour when your mouse passes over it! a picture of a lady who takes her clothes off as you watch! (Oops! Sorry! Shouldn't have mentioned that one!) OK, there's nothing wrong with them, as long as you
The latter is becoming more and more common. Am I the only one who finds it more than a little infuriating? Please, Webmasters, stop it! It's as bad as that awful tag! Enough! Get on to the good! For a really thorough site, packed with information and updated frequently, look at the Tim Rice Home Page. Everything there you'll ever want to know about Sir Tim is there and it's a fan page that manages to avoid being too reverential. In similar vein, Karen Rappaport's Alan Bates Archive, which was the subject of one of these articles on 9th March, also shows what a fan site should be. The Les Mis and Miss Saigon sites, however, have good design in addition to excellent information. They're also quite easy to navigate, in spite of there being a great deal there. But still the best of the lot, as far as I am concerned, is Adventures in Motion Pictures' Swan Lake site, which makes superb use a mixture of animated gifs and text to tell the story of the ballet and enable us to appreciate what the director and choreographer are doing. Now I realise that others will place the Miss Saigon and Les Mis sites above this one, but that's hardly surprising. After all, personal taste must enter into the discussion. If we all liked the same things, life would be terribly boring. There's nowhere where this is more true than in sites devoted to actors or to shows. We like what we like, and we're going to like a site devoted to our favourite actor or show better than one about an actor or show we're not so keen on, or even actively dislike. You'll never get me, for instance, raving about a site for Annie, simply because I happen to feel (on a good day) that this particular show is syrupy, over-sentimental tripe. (Stop beating about the bush, Lathan! Say what you mean!) Theatres We don't, however, get so passionate about theatres - or, at least, most of us don't - and it's perhaps easier to reach agreement about sites devoted to them. But that's not always possible: in last week's article about the new National Theatre site, I mentioned the reaction of one contributor to rec.arts.theatre.misc which was totally at odds with my view. I sometimes wonder whether theatre site webmasters ever really think about what visitors want from their sites. Most assume it is the programme, but I wonder. If I want to know what's going on at my local theatres, I can look in the local paper, or at Teletext, or at their advertising brochure, for, as someone who is interested in theatre, I make sure that I get brochures from all the local theatres. I certainly wouldn't start up my computer, connect to my ISP, fire up my browser, type in the URL, just to read what's on. If, however, I want to know something about a particular play or show, and I haven't got the brochure, then I might just do this. And certainly if I'm visiting a town or city and want to know what's on before I go there, then I'll log on to the local theatre's site (unless, of course, I've got a copy of the Guardian or any other paper that carries extensive theatre listings Those of us who read The Stage will just turn to its listing page!) No: it's got to be more than just programme listings. But what? I suspect that it will vary from theatre to theatre. The Stephen Joseph site, for instance, shows us how the old Odeon cinema was converted to the new theatre, whereas the Tron site has its own BBS in which visitors can discuss theatre in Scotland in general and Glasgow in particular. The Royal Court has its magazine, whilst the Hackney Empire tells us everything you could possibly want to know about this historic theatre. The Almeida puts its artistic policy online and has beautiful design to boot. These are the sites you remember: there are hoards of others which are instantly forgettable, simply because they have nothing to differentiate them from all the rest. I can remember the ones I've just mentioned, in some detail, but I can't remember a thing about the Sunderland Empire site at all - and yet I worked there for nearly ten years! (Another site which has since vanished.) Conclusions Conclusions? I haven't any. Except to say that those who create a theatre-related site (or any other, for that matter) should find and concentrate on what the marketing and advertising worlds call the USP, the Unique Selling Point, that thing which makes the theatre, company, show, whatever, different from all the rest. Once they've got that, the content should follow, and the design will follow the content. And that's important: if design is the first consideration, then the site is going to be good to look at but no damned good to anyone other than the designer! Articles Indices: |
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