Re: Front Pages

At 12:49 p.m. 08/28/98 +0000, jayse wrote:
>I personally find books without covers very ugly.
>Don't you?

I forget -- are we creating books here, or are we making web
pages?

You're right, I think covers work fine on books.

On the other hand, I don't want to sit for 35 seconds to listen
to theme music when I call you up on the phone -- unless you're
busy for some reason.  Even if you are busy, I don't want to
listen to 35 seconds of music simply to "put me in the mood"
for your answering machine.

My answering machine jumps straight to "hi, you've called <blah>,
leave your message", rather than playing pointless music.  What
does yours do?

[Note that the answering machine metaphor is at -least- as
applicable as the book one.]

>And when you buy a book... you've already bought it...

But the purpose of a book is entice you to pick it up.

>I think Kynn would suggest
>that you rip the beautiful cover off since it's OOOOH so tedious to turn that
>first page to get to the CONTENT!~!

Books aren't web pages.  The "flaw" you seem to have found here is
only because you insist on using an incorrect paradigm for the
web.

Question:  How many people will instantly start reading on page
37 of a book, without even seeing the cover, or even knowing much
about what the book is, or who wrote it?

Answer:  None.

Question:  How many people will begin on an "interior" page of
your website, rather than on the "cover" page?

Answer:  A whole lot.

The analogy of "web pages as books" is flawed.  This is why you
can construct straw men like "Kynn wants us to rip the covers off
our books!"

>I personally...will never do that.
>As far as saying - forget that format! It doesn't work for the web...
>It's only partly true...

No, it's entirely true.  Web pages aren't books, and if you're trying
to ape a magazine or a book with your web page, you're losing a huge
amount of the potential of the web, and limiting yourself to a
broken metaphor.

Now, if you want to do that, that's fine.  I don't care how bad of
a web page anyone wants to make; we're just here to talk theory,
after all.

>I don't like books/mags without covers and I don't like movies without intros or
>Cd's without beginnings -

Do you like three-minute-long voicemail introductions that just 
consist of musak playing, before you can get to a menu for finding
what you want?

Do you like lining up to go into a store, not for any valid reason,
but because the shop proprietor thought it would be a good idea to
make potential customers wait longer before entering?

>and yes... there are some web pages that just WORK very
>well with splash pages.

Such as?

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn(at)idyllmtn.com>             http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California
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