A Macromedia Flash website can
be great for presenting brochure style websites. It's
ability to integrate sound and video, as well as permitting
smooth animations makes it more attention grabbing and
thus making the website appear more lively. However it
can require more support to update certain elements.
Pros: Great for displaying information
in eye catching ways, and good for implementing a wide
range of multimedia. Cons: Less flexible for
inhouse editing than basic Html pages.
Content Management Systems
or CMS is generally most appropriate if you have
relatively large website. Corporate companies will generally
need content management systems so that many staff can
access and edit pages on the website simultaneously. Some
Universities and FE Colleges have used content management
systems for their websites but equally some still seem
to manage without them. Content Management Systems work
best where there is a strong will to run the website virtually
totally in house and for it to change often.
Pros: Good for large organisations
and ones with alot of content changes. Cons: Start
up costs are often greater than brochure sites as they
require both design and development work.
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Simple Content Management - an
alternative to a full CMS website system is to make certain
areas of the website available to edit in-house and to
achieve this you don't need a content management system.
It is possible to set up software to allow certain areas
of the website to be easy to edit such as a news or staff
page and/or pages for the pupils to work on.
Pros: Easy to set up and relatively
inexpensive. Cons: Is not well suited on sites
where lots of content will change all over the website
on a day to day basis
Database driven websites
typically store key information in a database and then
the required information is drawn out via a query.
For example if you had a holiday website
the database will contain the holidays, the dates, prices
and booking info etc. So when a user searches they are
returned with a list of information based on their query.
So for example if you were on a travel
website and were looking to find a holiday for 14 nights
in Taba, Egypt leaving on the 28th of June from Gatwick
Airport. The database would send back all the information
relating to that query. IE All the available holidays
that relate your query. The pages that you are presented
form a database are what we refer to as created 'on
the fly'. This implies the page only appears as a
result of your query and was not a webpage that was published
and placed on the website in advance.
Pros: Fast and powerful for delivering
results and information. Can provide advanced information
solutions Cons: Relatively high start up costs,
can be quite technical and often requires more support.
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E-Commerce websites are typically
less relevant to schools, but what they do offer is the
ability to browse items for sale on an online store and
to be able to add required items to purchase to a shopping
cart. Once you are finished with your shopping you go
to an electronic online checkout where you can pay for
your goods using a debit or credit card. Most people will
have used an E-Commerce website at some point, especially
if they have bought any presents on Amazon.com!
Pros: Allows Webmasters to sell
online to make money online from their website Cons:
Relatively high start up costs, quite time consuming and
can require alot of ongoing attention to ensure good operation
at all times.
For an explanation of the difference between
custom designed websites and template websites click
here.
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