Car, truck, motorbike, SUV, clown car, limousine or taxi?
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Like transport, websites come in a variety of 'classes'. The force for selection can be equally varied and include economy, function, style, and even ego. Somewhere between your organization's strategy and your audience's needs is the right model website to get the best outcomes — does your organization have the discipline to choose the right one?
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Our categorization ...
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For the sake of clarification and discussion in other areas of the BAOWP website, we have created an eight-group categorization of website types. Like any model, we could have added more classes, changed the criteria, or taken any number of other approaches. We use this set because it keeps the breakdown simple, is relatively comprehensive but also reasonably discrete and it provides a suitable framework for customization (you get to pick your wheels, interior fabric, color and navigation package). Use the feedback form at the base of the page to tell us what you think (maybe snow mobiles, boats, and private jets next year). So here they are ...
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APPLIANCE (Class A)
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Appliance sites are focused almost entirely on 'doing something functional'. We could have called these application sites, covering browsers, online software, communication tools and similar over-the-web applications, however the term appliance also extends to websites built purely to facilitate downloads. Although many websites have some appliance functionality, in particular Portals and Shops, this category is devoted to sites where it is the appliance (software) that is the primary focus of the website. Some other commentators may call some of these sites; online applications, download sites, web tools, web delivered software and other similar names. Examples include ...
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BROCHURE (Class B)
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The largest category of sites are the 'brochure' sites of organizations, Governments, products and services. Although many of these websites have some transactional and functional aspects, these websites are primarily focused on informing interested parties about aspects of the organization and its deliverables. The nature of these sites is not as purely commercial as our 'Shop' categorization and doesn't have the rate of content change exhibited by our 'Feed' category. Other names for this category could include corporate websites, information sites, branded websites, entertainment sites and common websites. Examples of predominantly brochure based sites include ...
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COMMUNITY (Class C)
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One of the fastest growing and most rapidly changing areas of the web, this category includes community, special interest, sharing, social networking and some personal-publishing tools. This category tends to 'leak' into the Class-A (Appliance) and Class-E (Ego) groups. The reason is that many of these community environments are powered by web appliances and some of the published outcomes amount to ego (personal) publishing. If the site is mainly focussed on the tool, then it is a Class-A (Appliance) site, if it is mainly focussed on individual publishing then it is a Class-E (Ego) site, however if it is about shared interest and access to a group generated repository of data, then welcome to Class-C. Some commentators may describe this categorization as; club sites, game sites, gripe sites, self-publish communities, media sharing sites, topic sites and aggregated wikis and blogs. Examples include ...
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EGO (Class E)
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As the song says, 'ego is not a dirty word'. People have always wanted to 'self-publish', be heard, and document aspects of their life. Ego sites include personal websites, family sites, wedding sites, individual blogs, certain fan-sites and personal topic-based sites. Often Class-A (Appliance) sites are used to facilitate these outcomes and in this class (even though we have provided examples of the access points and tools), we are more specifically referring to the production of individual pieces of content, personal sites, blogs and stand-alone domains.
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FEED (Class F)
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The category covers sites that feed news and information to large audiences with significant frequency and where large parts of the information are only valuable for a limited time. Although many other sites have some news delivery component, this category focuses on real-time news delivery and information services. Subcategories may included news, sports, weather, employment and some high volume media and entertainment sites. These sites are often one communication facet of much larger communication focussed organizations. Examples include ...
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PORTAL (Class P)
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No you are not a portal (at least not until you have checked all the other categories). Although portal simply means 'doorway' it has become a chronically misused term on the web. In the case of this categorization, we are talking about omnibus sites, grand in scale and function that cover the combined territory of many of the other categorizations, in particular Information Feeds (Type F), Community (Type C) and Web Appliances (Type A). These very large pieces of web infrastructure are multifaceted and literally the 'doorways' that many millions of web visitors use as entry points to the web at large. Specific topic entry points are more likely classed as Community (Type C) sites. Examples of true portals include ...
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REPOSITORY (Class R)
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We could have called this class 'Archives' however we needed another letter. Repositories are more heavily focussed on storing longer-term knowledge that either Brochure (Type B) or Feed (Type F) information websites. Some subclasses may include; information archives, knowledge bases, online databases, encyclopedias and other similar websites. Although these sites are likely to make use of web Appliances (Type A) and even Community (Type C) models for the creation, aggregation and quality control of content, they are primarily focussed on the knowledge that is stored within the site. Examples include ...
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SHOP (Class S)
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When Class-B (Brochure) sites grow up, they hope to become transactional sites! Well maybe not, however most organizations want to transact with their audience, either financially or from a communication feedback perspective. Many Class-B sites have eCommerce and other transactional functionality, however they do not fall into this classification. In Class-S (Shop) we are talking about websites that fundamentally exist to complete transactions (usually financial) and almost all of the content is focussed in that direction. Banking sites, subscription sites and online stores are generally in this class. Unfortunately so are many pornographic, phishing and other unsavory websites. More respectable examples include ...
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If you have been through the other visitor behavior topics, you may now wish to complete the audience worksheet for your website.
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