Telling Connections

What Is the Aura of Your Home Page?

What first impression does the home page of your web site generate in others?

Some home pages leave a user warm, others leave a user cold. But, there are other subtle responses that will motivate a person to make a choice whether or not to return to your home page and/or site.

Reactions to your home page will vary according to how a user is "wired."  Does she prefer an intensively visual experience, a kinesthetic (i.e. "touchy-feely") experience, or a straightforward verbal presentation?  Does he expect pictures of people, descriptions of service opportunities, or reports of mission results?

Yet, there are a few reactions that careful planning and choices can avoid:

• This is no different than a sheet of paper in a file folder on my desk. Where's the interactivity?
• This home page looks more like a canned ad from a travel service.
• I feel trapped. There is nothing but words on this page. Very few links to help me escape.
• Wasn't this the same last year?
• This page is too busy, and besides, it takes soooooo long to load.
• This page is messy, no organization.
• How do I get in touch with the organization whose page this is?

Most users do not first encounter your site by going to your home page. They have used search engines and links they have found to go to pages within your site. They may never choose to click on your organization's logo or other navigational button to go there.

Yet, if they do, will your home page add to the value they found in the page they originally visited on your site? Will it be inviting / "sticky" so that the user will bookmark your page (and thus, your site) for future use?

For more ideas, find a copy of Ginny Redish's Letting Go of the Words. Also, use Nielson's site on usability.

Are We "Shorting Out" Our Ability to Connect?

Few of us would be without a good surge protector to lessen the chance of burning out our computers, printers, and related equipment.

However, most of us - including yours truly - do not take the same precautions about what surges of activity are doing to our embedded computers, i.e. our brains. How often do you find yourself typing an e-mail, talking on the phone, and monitoring a video stream at the same time?

We have come to refer to this as multitasking. For many of us, it has become the norm. Gone are the days where just the busiest of managers and homemakers (male and female) do it on a regular basis.

I have another question, "What is my multitasking doing to the connections I am attempting to make with people?"

I have not gotten to the point where I continue to do several things when someone calls and needs to talk, not just ask for information. The only reason that I have not is that those closest to me often call me on this and help me to put the other stuff down for a minute. In their challenge, I find a sobriety of activity that carries over to other conversations.

I am reminded of a term that describes "less-than-good" electrical connections: "shorting out".

Are we "shorting-out" the relationships that we have by not making sure that the connections we have are intentional and focused? If so, the brain will not be the only part of us that gets fried.

I am taking steps to do fewer tasks at once, one step at a time. Join me.

Responding When Someone Reaches Out to You

Have we been programmed by our use of media, especially television and radio?

This question is not to ask about how our values and world views may have been affected by these media, but how our communication practices may have been.

When we consume, we don't have to respond. We watch. We listen. Most of us do not make an effort to engage the actors and other on-air personalities.

Does this carry over to our other communications?

When I "consume" the communications of a friend, colleague, or acquaintance, do I consistently respond? This is the question that I wrestled with during the hour it took me to return to my office after lunch with a friend yesterday. My friend had asked me if I ever received responses from certain offices with whom he and I have attempted to make connection by use of e-mails and phone calls.

Back in the office I looked at the list of e-mails that had arrived during the time I was out. In addition to the spam, I saw one  I had not expected from a friend and colleague in ministry. I opened it. It was a simple "Thank You." It was his response to an e-mail I had sent several colleagues containing attachments about coming events.

The question that my lunch conversation generated became more pressing. This "Thank You" was from one of the busiest colleagues I sent the general e-mail to. Of all those who could have chosen not to respond even with clicking on "reply", typing "Thank You" and clicking on "Send" --- thus taking a few precious moments of his time --- he could have made the best case to not do so. But, he didn't. He responded. He made a deeper connection with me.

Am I asking to receive a "Thank You" to all my general e-mails? No. But I am asking, do we respond to others' reaching out to us --- who are trying to make a connection with us --- as we do television and other media? How do we treat others in their attempts to make connection with us?

Does the rapid pace, the multiple multi-taskings we are ever sacrificing ourselves to, allow us to ignore those who have reached out to us as if their attempt to communicate with us is one of those many impersonal broadcasts we consume each day?

So many responsibilities! So many people! So few hours! So busy! Has this litany - repeated in some way by most of us - been our telling connection to others. That is, do we tell others by our lack of response that we do not want a connection with them?

In other words, are we hear to consume and be consumed or to serve?

Keep Your Site Fresh

"I'd like to 'freshen up' the site." What do you propose?

To keep your church site from becoming too stale, you will be tempted to do some of the following. DON'T!

• Give your o.k. to yourself or other creative person to replace your home page with a splash of Flash.
• Add scrolling headlines.
• Add an animation. (Think about ad with the dancing figure on the weather channel's site, then you won't.)
• Replace your home page with your church history page.
• Cover your home page with images of people - especially children - in your church.
• Import a popular Christian song and set it to play when users open your home page.
• Use vivid colors in a background image for your home page.

Some of the above should not be done because they would slow the download of your home page. Others would frustrate your users' ability to read/scan the content of your home page. Using a popular song without express written permission of the artist and/or label may earn you a "cease and desist" letter from their lawyers.

Here is a better way: Return to the basics. In her column "Build a Better Web Site" (PC Magazine, November 6, 2007; p. 110) Vicki B. Jacobson lists 6 strategies to better, or we might say, "refresh," your site including your home page. Find her short article and identify which of these you first need to work on.

• Define your goals
• Identify your audience
• Develop a project plan
• Design and develop
• Make pages usable
• Define success

I would also recommend Nielson's site on usability and Jenny Redish's book Letting Go of the Words as great resources to help you freshen up your site.