[WEB4LIB] Re: flash image on our home page

[Kevin W. Bishop]

At 07:35 AM 7/5/01 -0700, Blake Carver wrote:
>That's true, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to add a little "flash", in this
>case "flash" doesn't necessarily mean Flash, but any number of nice
>graphical elements, or just a nice design. It creates a good impression on
>users (students, librarians, administrators, people who control your budget,
>etc...).
>Why look like a boring old library, if you don't have to, just don't over do
>it.
>It's all about balance, and knowing your users.

Certainly -- but catering to the MTV generation, as some have suggested, 
can backfire.  After all, MTV is able to afford the latest and greatest in 
graphical design ... which of our public and/or academic libraries (or 
schools) can claim the ability to employ such high profile, trend-setting 
artists?

Just a few years ago our university hired a marketing firm/ad agency to 
produce a video that would appeal to the "MTV generation."  Perhaps we 
could blame the ad agency but the video was so awful -- trying to be 
something it had no hope of being!! -- that instead of generating interest 
in our school among high school students (and other graduates), it made us 
look like fools.  [I learned this by talking to people who decided to study 
elsewhere after seeing that video.]

Why compete?  Why not distinguish ourselves in other unique ways?

Just a thought.
-kb


_________________________________________
Kevin W. Bishop
Communication & Collaboration Technologies
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
<bishopk at rpi.edu> | <http://www.rpi.edu/rpinfo/>