A Working Website

Having a working website means that you are aware of, and care about, your image; that you are a modern school with modern attitudes to learning; and that you know the value of good, effective communication. It would seem to be a must-have for any Academy.

But a website can be a two-edged sword: a website that isn’t working indicates that you don’t care about your image, technology is a bit of a mystery to you, and communication does not have a high priority in your school. Everything hinges on that word “working” - so how do you ensure that yours is a working website?

An Effective Website?

A website that works has several features:

· It is attractive, to draw in the customer - and we should not pretend otherwise, the people who visit our website are our customers.

· It is informative, it gives the customer the information they want.

· It is transparent - easy to navigate, and easy to find things; the structure of the site does not impede the customer.

· It is complete: no broken links, because every broken link is a broken promise.

· It is candid and honest.

An Exciting Website?

A working website does not exist because the school needs a web presence; it is not there as a flagship for the school; and, although it should be seen as an important part of a school’s image, that is not why it exists. A working website is a website that keeps its customers informed. In other words, a working website is all about content. You may use interesting new ways of presenting information, but they will be seen as irritating coding tricks if they get between your customer and the information they want. You don’t want your customers to leave your website thinking “that was dazzling but useless”, you want them to think “that worked”.

The Best Website?

A working website is, by definition, never perfect: perfection is achievable when change ceases, and a working website never ceases to change. Having the best website should not be the primary aim of your Academy web creators - it is a vague and ill-defined objective, and largely unachievable. Instead, the web designers should be creating a website with a strong vision which serves the Academy’s current needs.

The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor.

John Allen Paulos

Almost overnight, the Internet's gone from a technical wonder to a business must.

Bill Schrader

The Internet is clearly about more than sports scores and email now. It's a place where we can conduct our democracy and get very large amounts of data to very large numbers of people.