E-Exchanges with Jacques

JR,

i stumbled onto your site last week and love it. The navigation of the site could use a little help, but that is sooo overlooked by the content. I've greatly enjoyed reading the articles. Your site is a wonderful way of keeping the Dallas Art community connected and informed. Thanks!!

Jacques,

I appreciate your kind words — though I wish you'd cite something more specific than

“The navigation of the site could use a little help.”

J R

 

JR,

More specific ... hmmmm and you know artists are the hardest critics...

I'd say the layout needs to be more organized. Scattered throughout the pages are hypertext links so as one reads you end up bouncing around various pages often forgetting where you even started.

The Internet is exactly that — an inter net. Nets linked with other nets.

Many web sites insist on keeping their readers on site and not letting them wander off.

This is sometimes understandable. If a site is selling widgets, the company doesn't want visitors wandering off to buy better or cheaper widgets somewhere else.

So site owners try to keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paree.

My understanding is many people clicked on a link somewhere else to get to DallasArtsRevue, and DallasArtsRevue should play well enough with others to let readers go off any time they want to.

I purposely link pertinent web pages to text, so readers can read what they want when they want.

Most visitors bookmark sites they like, so when they get lost, they can come back. I like assuming my readers are intelligent.

I like to treat them as fellow artists and fellow net surfers and fellow members of this virtual community.

Granted if this is your intent, I'll remember to bring bread crumbs next time. :)

Bring the bread crums.

I feel keeping it simple would encourage users to frequent your site more often (knowing they have a quick reference point for all their art needs).

30-50 thousand visitors visit every month. More likely it's some subset of those numbers who keep coming back. They can wander off if they want, but I suspect they keep coming back.

Still, what you say is probably true. I am attempting to simplify things. But it's not easy. I'm a complicated guy. Everytime I think I've simplified something, someone complains.

I am often too close to see anything but what I expect to see. Which is why I rely on people to tell me what they think.

Another thing I noticed which almost amounts to visual clutter, is the frequent changes in font sizes, bolding, and colors. Now some of these changes are links while others are not. Take for example the recent Hood Tour 2005, Morpheus Company is highlighted in blue which makes me assume it's a link to another page.

I changed the Hood Tour typography, per your suggestion. I'd never thought about the confusion of blue text and blue (usually, unclicked links are seen as blue — unless the user has set their browser differently) links.

I knew some people have trouble reading light blue text, but I'd never considered the potential for direct confusion.

I like color and type, and I do not believe one size fits all. But I am developing a cleaner overall style.

I think your intent is to make the names of artists and places stand out, but it seems to work against itself by being misleading as a link and often more difficult to read through quickly. The Index of Art Criticism is a prime example with names in light blue against a sea green back ground. It's difficult to scan quickly.

I've been working on that page. I guess I'm not finished there.

By the time readers see this, I will have changed the blue on green text.

I certainly agree DARts does provide the information, finding it among the tangle of pages is something else. There's so much information ... all the more reason to keep it simple.

It's not simple information. And there's not just one simple place to put it where everybody can find it.

Possibly developing a color scheme to the site or some other sorts of visual references that will let the viewer understand whether they are looking at recent shows, reviews, upcoming events, etc...

Actually, DallasArtsRevue has a long-standing color scheme. Red and Dark Blue for headlines. Pink for deadlines and opening times and through dates. Green for directions, instructions or money.

Sometime before 2008 I jettisoned Light blue for people's names. Red for titles and publications and web sites, and Dark Blue for headlines. Partially for aesthetic reasons but also because as Jacques noted, all those silly colors are very confusing.

At the time of this emaile exchange text was usually black. Then, dark blue text, especially when it's indented, indicated the Editor's opinions or statements. For the last several years, those are in gray type, and still indented.

I do like your site so I'm not at all criticizing in a bad way. There is some organization and I recognize that...you had asked me to be more specific so I hope this helps.

Thanks again,
Jacques

 

Initial E-mail Exchange with LA Ragland

JR:
if you are open to feedback, then please read below;
if not, then please disregard.

> ===================================

initial impression of site not warm or user-friendly. phrasing and/or word choice read as predominantly stated in the negative: don'ts, nots, rules/steps, etc. present a repellant vibe vs. a welcoming tone. this doesn't inspire positive experience of visit to the site or positive regard for the organization overall.

I think by "site," LA actually means the How to Join DARts page, but I'm not certain.

email subscriber link for visitors/public info is not immediately accessible in first part of home page for casual visitors. my original interest in visiting DARts' site was to find the subscriber link/join the email list to get a feel for the organization in order to see if membership / commitment would interest me.

sincerely,
LA Ragland,
Arts PR Consultant & Visual Communicator

LA,
thanks for the feedback. i've struggled with that page for half a decade. any suggestions?
; j r

2econd E-mail Exchange

LA,

I've been putting off responding to your letter, because it involves delving deep into the philosophy of this site.

It's an intriguing opportunity to restate what I am and this site is all about. I suspect we can both learn from it.

I am not new to weber8ing. I've been doing it since the mid 90s, which is a long time in this biz.

I'm entertaining all your suggestions, even though I disagree with many of them. I understand some of the accepted wisdom, but I don't believe it anymore than I believe that journalists can or should be objective.

I have my own way of doing things.

I've thought this through. This site and its navigation may have grown like Topsy, but the philosophy behind and beneath it is careful and planned and precise.

It is a continuation of the ink and paper publication I published in Dallas from December 1979 till 1996.

YOU'RE WELCOME, JR!
since i do this for a living, perhaps you would consider comping me a year's membership for the advice below (assuming you find it helpful).

i'm a struggling entreprenuer & artist, myself. but i have lots of suggestions!

I'll give you a Subscription. Not sure whether a Supporting Membership is appropriate or called for. Do you have art you can put on a page?

That is the main benefit of DARts Membership — besides knowing you are helping support something important in this community.

Deciding what your suggestions are worth will take more than a cursory read. My mind is opening. This is not a flippant reply.

> ===================================

Strange, your fascination for lines. Something I've avoided in publication design (white space is better, faster, lighter, more meaningful and thought-provoking. White space is also spatial, like me.

Lines are, well, linear.

1) simplify site BIGTIME. in your effort to explain things/details, the site is not generally easy to navigate / understand.

I agree. But how?

i totally get that you are trying to accurately communicate group/site info & operations w/readers, but there's way too much info on the surface of things.

"Surface" of "things" is vague.
   

If readers don't find what they need to know about the inside of this site on the cover and other entry pages, they won't be able to go there.

i just wanted to subscribe to your public email list to "be in the loop"

There is no public email list.

of event happenings (that i might join and pay money for).

Anyone may visit the Calendar for current and upcoming events and shows. It's free, like more than 99% of DARts pages, and it's huge and full of information. I update it often.

Note that the Calendar is now listed near the top of our newish yellow nav bar. (Your suggestion. A good one.)

if you want to explain operations/details, think of this data in layers.

 

think pyramid structure.

Pyramids are very large structures that mostly comprise solid, heavy blocks of stone. The chambers within are connected by long narrow tunnels aligned to stars and astronomical and astrological positions.

The few passageways are physically difficult to transverse. There are no maps or directions. You already have to know something's in there that will be worth your while.

The real meat in pyramids is burried deep inside of nearly impenetrable mass. I hope DallasArtsRevue is more like a flea-market.

DallasArtsRevue is already way too like a pyramid.
 

think MACRO view of DARts first, on home page. think of someone who's never been to site and is curious to check it out.

Hence the long yellow nav bar along the side of new pages. It lists all the major pages and sections, from which new visitors can explore.

look at other sites that are easy to understand. they start w/generic info on first layer, and offer links to 2nd generation type info, such as "become a member or subscriber" followed by detailed info on 3rd and 4th layers.

these layers can be links to gather membership data, etc. right now, your site seems all side-by-side info and it's too much to comprehend.

"Side by side info?" You mean like columns in a newspaper or magazine?

2) remove all negative-phrasing, wherever possible:

I don't think so.

"if you do not include your E-mail address on your check, you will be left out of the loop."

It is a threat and not an empty one. It is intended to get attention. It got your attention.

this reads as a threat, a hoop to jump thru; like a hangnail, it erodes confidence / rapport. it creates a question mark in my head. i wonder if i will benefit from my investment of time or money without "pain in the *%!#" somewhere down the road.

Too many people do not include that information, so I have to track it down. If they provide it up front, I save time, effort and temper. I am a human being, not a corporation. When I learn my needs, I try to make them known.

when signing up for membership on site, isn't there a main contact table to gather basic info on potential new members, especially email info?

What is a "main contact table?" I really like the idea of gathering info on potential members, especially "potential old members."

seems you would want to get new members "in the loop" ASAP. waiting to get their payment to put them in the loop seems PR backward, not to mention practically cumbersome, hard-copy way to track info? give them benefit of doubt that they are sending money, track money after 30 days with an email reminder note. "you signed up for membership on 1/1/05, but we have not rec'd your payment to date."

That'd be great if I had an assistant to track down all these details, but if I gave membership privileges to everybody who's told me my check was in the mail, I'd go broke. Any business would.
 

I don't know when the myth of objectivity came to control public media.

Despite "no spin zones" and "fair and balanced" claims to the contrary, the media have not become more responsible.

Objectivity is a ruse. It's a lie. Anyone who writes or edits or publishes does so from a point of view, and that point of view, wherever it is introduced, is always present in journalim.

Always.

A. take the "you" out of the above to: "include E-mail address on payment."

"make checks payable to J. R. Compton. My bank won't accept checks with any other payee."

I used to get a lot of checks like that. Since I put in that notice, I've only got one.

if your bank won't do it, find another bank that will. at least find a bank that will allow JR Compton dba DARts so you don't have to trouble

It is better for my tax status to have J R Compton not dba DARts, so I can include all my expenses against my all my income, where they belong.

members w/above snafu. however, i suggest you change the above situation altogether, as indivdual/entity separation will be much better in the long run for tax purposes, annual tracking, etc.

plus, it looks MORE PROFESSIONAL for members to write checks to entity vs. individual!

Maybe. It would sure be a lot less hassle.

B. open a free checking account in DARts name and get a stamp w/DARts name from Office Depot that's "for deposit only."

I can write that on my own checks now. What does a stamp do that writing it doesn't? DallasArtsRevue is published by J R Compton.

From Genres of New Journalism:

Participatory Journalism: This genre occurs when the author directly participates in what is going on around him, becomes immersed in those events and tries to write about it as accurately as possible.

C. remove all references to yourSELF on site, wherever possible.

 

No! I've been very careful — and it is entirely on purpose and thought-through — to establish myself as a fellow artist in this community. A member.

I experience the art I review or discuss. My emotions are engaged. My opinions are expressed, from my experience and understanding — as a person, not the royal or editorial "we," although I do employ the first-person plural often enough.

I want to establish myself as someone with similar needs and dreams and schemes as other artists here. I am careful to share these experiences with my readers, sometimes more personally than others (www.DallasArtsRevue.com/O/T/ compared with any reviews, for extremes.)

I know the "rules," and I know they often need breaking. I pick and choose. Very carefully. I am not tilting willy-nilly.

I may not always be wise, but I am intelligent. I have a philosophy for this web site, and it is different from the concepts you are espousing.

There is purpose in my plans. I am helping build community, not just serving up information, although I am serving up LOTS of information — and that information helps build this community.

"I may have lost your e–address in a software meltdown."

is entirely accurate. And human, thereby capable of error.
DARts is not an institution. There's just one of me. I am the benign dictator, which is the best of all possible forms of government. Most efficient. Most direct.

The benign part may be questionable, however.

create a more anonymous, generic presence as author / manager of site. use WE wherever possible as author. afterall, you are speaking for the group as a whole, and you have been entrusted w/this duty, honor, responsibility.

No!

I decided to do it. Readers decide to visit this site to get what they want and need. Their friends and teachers tell them about it. Many visitors have been here before, and they keep coming back.

I want and need to produce DallasArtsRevue.com. It is an honor, but only if people visit. Thousands do, every day.

See A Short History of DallasArtsRevue.

Many people say the same thing to me, "Thank you for all that you do."

I define and exercise the duty. The honor is when people in my community appreciate it.

i'm sure people really appreciate all the work you do for DARts!

but as a visitor, i don't need to know that you are managing this alone. that makes DARts' web-presence smaller. bigger image is better to attract more members, even artists outside of local area.
 

Filling a niche is far more rewarding than trying to cover too large a geographical area.

I often wonder whether trying to cover Denton, Arlington and Fort Worth is absurd, since I rarely go that far away.

I am pleased that I live in the inner city of Dallas, that Deep Elm, downtown and our so-called Arts District(s) — and more importantly, White Rock Lake are all close to home.

think BIG: regional, national, even!!

Definitely not!

Smaller IS better.

It is, after all. DALLAS arts revue. I have published other rags, some of which folded when they attempted to go state-wide, regional or national — trying to cover too large an area.

It's a logical quagmire that outsiders tend not to understand.

It has to do with understanding who I am and what I am doing. I think I understand, and I'm pretty sure you do not. Yet.

D-Magazine named me Dallas' Best Local Arts Promoter. They did not say I was the best critic or the best art promoter. Precision of language is necessary to understand my role in all this.

I identify strongly with DallasArtsRevue, and I am strongly identified with it. And that is exactly as it should be in this new, still not well understood medium.

Consider personal blogs and narrow-casting, not People Magazine and broadcast networks.

I, as an individual member of this community, am publishing a web site for everybody in this area. I write about what I know. I know little about art elsewhere. My expertise is here.

I am serving a community. I am not in it for the money, although I want it to pay for itself. I'd love to make a lot of money doing it, but I have not yet figured out how to do that.

Who else would I apologize as?

D. don't apologize anywhere on the site, especially as J R Compton!

Wrong again. I am a human. I make mistakes. I can correct my mistakes. And often do.

Supporting Members' thoughts and opinions are extremely important to me. I am careful to make them know this and to know that they can tell me stuff whenever it occurs to them.

Many do. I get a half dozen E-mails from them every week.

I respond very quickly to those voiced opinions. Supporting Members and Subscribers are extremely important to me and to DallasArtsRevue.

 

E. have a general disclaimer at bottom of membership page (cause they're the only people you should have to answer to, not the general visiting public)

I am also very interested in how "the general visiting public" experiences this site, and what they think. I consider all feedback.

I am happy to publish both positive and negative opinions from anybody. I can learn from all those people. Members are only a small percentage of the site's total readers.

that says something like: "this is a non-profit operation funded entirely by membership donations."

DallasArtsRevue.com is NOT a non-profit operation. And it is most certainly not "entirely funded by membership donations."

I support this sucker. It is mine, and it is me.

Members help a lot.

website is always evolving/improving and welcomes your suggestions / feedback. "of course we do the best we can with what we have, and we know there's always room for improvement!" if you haven't heard from us in a while and think we are in error, please contact us and we'll promptly > amend the situation. OUR site/group is managed on a volunteer basis, and data occasionally falls thru the cracks.

Phew! That's sure a long way of saying what I said it a lot fewer words.

I definitely do not have volunteeers managing this site. I do it. But I'm not alone. I am a member of a community, and my community supports my efforts, financially and spiritually.

3) most importantly, for PR purposes, consider allowing email subscriber list to non-paying individuals, such as my initial visit. i came to your site to check it out from a moonlady tip. that's invaluable marketing.

Amy "Moonlady" Martin is a very good friend of mine. As photographer for Solstice events, I am one of her volunteers, and she appreciates me.

See the Solstice Index for lots of my photographs of SolstiCelebrations.

she got you a visitor.

Actually she and I — "we" — got me a visitor. I help her. She helps me. This is a community. We work together.

now it's your job to continue marketing the organization to me!

I keep up an e-mail exchange with everyone who inquires about membership. It sometimes takes weeks or months or years. Sometimes it never happens. But I certainly do not drop the ball on this marketing opportunity. Neither do I put them on some anonymous E-mail list.

if i could receive free info from you, cause i'm interested and signed up,

This web site is full of free information that anybody can access. There are more than 600 pages of it here. Only two real pages are members-only. Until last week only one of those was worth anything. Though it is worth a lot.

then over time i might be swayed into becoming a member. people are more likely to invest when you "give them something up front."

You mean like the 1174+ free pages I give to everybody who comes here — Build it, and they will come?

I don't have to bribe potential members. I provide them actual value. When they pay their membership fee, they get what I offer. And I maintain communications with them.

the way your site presently reads, it looks like i have to put up something to get ANYTHING, even public info! i assume you want to attract

Very odd take.

Thousands of people from around the world — I've heard from countries in Europe, Asia, and Australia — access this site every day. And only two of the 600 pages are members-only, yet you want me to bribe them with a toaster to start an account?

There's gobs of free info here, and nobody has to put up with anything but my hare-brained navigation to get to all those places via the stack of links you want me to get rid of.

members. this is a virtually free way to develop rapport w/local artists. once they are accustomed to reading your press releases or whatever, you can develop incentives for them to join.

There are already incentives to join. Those incentives are very clearly laid out on the How to Join DARts page

please let me know your thoughts on the above, and if you found it helpful, J.R.

most sincerely,
LA Ragland

Somewhat. It's nice to communicate with someone who has some albeit vague understanding of a few of these concepts.

But it's also clear that different websites have vastly different meanings and/or purposes, many of which are not clearly understood by the "experts."

To my understanding that's a big part of having a site on the web. Hits are counted. They mean something. But what?

Worse — much worse — to do a proper calendar E-mail ListServ like Moonlady and many others — would take much more effort on my part. I already put a lot of energy into doing the calendar page, which is already the least insteresting of all my tasks here.

as an A.D.D.'er, i'm better off getting on a list that contacts me.

and i'm not looking for a toaster,
just a way to maybe get involved,
by sticking my big toe in before jumping in the water!

thanks for considering my thoughts. i admire your openness to feedback. i look forward to corresponding with you again very much.

LA Ragland