Hi Lora, 

Please do share the information below with the group. I will speak to it the next time I am there - most likely next week.

  1. A picture speaks a thousand words!!!
  2. UI has to be extremely intuitive to provide a good user experience.
  3. Web developers should embrace this opportunity, cause every development work requires the need to work with graphics and images. There are so many nuances that go into working with images and requires experience working with it. This may be the best low-no-cost opportunity to try it out.
  4. User experience requires putting yourself in the shoes of a ‘new’ user who is visiting the site. For instance, as a new user I would be looking for the information such as:
    1. What is TSSG all about?
    2. Who are all the people who go there? Is it only for programmers? Will TSSG help me as a manager in a technology company to become savvy of such skills to be able to work and communicate efficiently? Will they provide me with information / direction to continue my edification?
    3. I am interested in “abc/xyz” - do they discuss those skills?
    4. Where do they meet? How often? What should I bring along with me?
    5. How has this helped others?
    6. How big is the group?
    7. Are there volunteer opportunities?
  5. Now - I know some of the information is most likely good for FAQs. But, how do I know I should go there? Instead a single graphic that indicates ‘new user’ may be an option (not saying that this is the answer but mentioning for as a metaphor)
  6. Note that Google ‘literally’ beat Yahoo when Yahoo was at the peak and known to be the best search engine mainly for three important reasons:
    1. Simplicity: there was nothing on their site. Just a search box! What does that tell me? “We are a search engine and we focus only on that. We are simple to use”
    2. Exhaustive: The search results provided (in their initial days) was an exhaustive list of everything they found. And, it went on for pages! Subsequently, as the ranking and adwords became more extensively pervasive, their search results ONLY improved. 
    3. Focus: they did not deviate from their focus of being a search engine - EVER! Even now they are a search engine. Notice how intuitively they have ‘guided’ the user to look at small graphical images in peripheral areas of the screen for other solutions that are provided. Once in that area the screen gets crowded.
  7. Thus, for instance the TSSG site is very similar, maybe!
    1. A series of 3-4 nice sized images.
      1. Who we are
      2. Schedule
      3. FAQs
      4. How we help or What we do
      5. And, maybe a text display below the images indicating next week’s schedule for TSSG and the sub groups with their location.
    2. Each image leads to additional screens or the website can be a ‘rolling’ webpage, which is becoming very popular. 


Keep it simple!



FYI, I went to the website for a briefly but intentionally did not stay on it for a while. I intend to take some time and review it (again) in depth as a New User.


Thanks, 
Jay

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