The flip-side of "Pimp My Website"

After tonight's Linux User's Group broke up, one of the regulars--specifically the one who plans to augment the group website beyond its current Google Groups incarnation--asked whether I would want to contribute anything to the website. It was not the first time that I've been asked that question, so I actually was worldly-wise enough to respond with another question, namely something along the lines of, "Well, what are you looking for?"

As usual, there was no concrete answer.

What jumps into mind during those times when I'm leaving molar-prints in my tongue is the Dibert Sunday comic which has Alice meeting with a customer. The customer won't sign off on the project until Alice can assure him that the software's design will meet requirements...but, of course, he won't spell out what the requirements are. Alice--by now visibly restraining her trademark Fist of Death--explains that she can design the software do anything the requirements specify. To which the customer responds: "Can you design it to tell me my requirements?"

But--to ape Arlo Guthrie--that's not what I came to blog about.

That particular cartoon was taped to my overhead credenza at work for quite awhile...roughly the time it took for my primary client and me to learn each other's languages. For giggles, I tried Googling it tonight and came up largely skunked.

For those who don't pay too much attention to what goes on behind web pages, the content has to be in text form (or precisely and meaningfully labeled) for search engines like Google and Bing to list it in their results. Images--which cartoons ultimately are--don't do that. And as much as I owe so much to Dilbert's creator (Scott Adams) for the novocaine for the sometimes painful reality of corporate life, he doesn't make that easy--too busy selling ad space and moving the merch. on the franchise, apparently.

But that largely illustrates a problem waiting to happen when either Marketing decides that the front page of the website isn't blingy enough...or (in fairness) web programmers become antsy to branch out into the more visually gratifying space comprised by Adobe's Flash, Microsoft's Silverlight, or Sun's JavaFX. When you encapsulate your website's message into those formats, they completely drop off the radar, so far as search engines are concerned. That means that if you want your website to be at or near the top of the list when a potential customer Googles a word or phrase, you're out of luck if it's part of the flashy animated bits. There are ways to work around that, but they require a certain amount of cross-pollination. Basically, Marketing has to be aware of the downsides to shiny-new technologies, and Programming has to understand that the information has to be made visible--and not (I repeat, NOT) be penalized for the extra work/time that such redundancy requires.

But most importantly, the use of blingy website features should have a rock-solid business case. (Did I mention that the "rock" in question is a diamond? Yeah, that solid.) That's Management's responsibility. Which more or less brings us--proverbial full circle--to the question of defining requirements. For which an understanding of objectives is not quite enough; an understanding of the limitations is also requisite. As is an understanding of the fact that the afore-mentioned technologies are merely today's incarnation of the eternal tug-of-war between what you want to do and the tools available to do it.