We've had at least one thread pulled on the subject of snake websites and what makes a good one. I'd like to chime in with some ideas for the person who originally asked for advice, but I hope that I can make the advice generic enough to meet TOS. None of this commentary is specific to that website. I'm almost tempted to turn this commentary into a critique of the popular commercial sites, but that would be overreaching. I will admit that one point came specifically from my trying to read a popular breeder's site.
First, when one creates a website, one needs to have a strategy and purpose in mind. When I've talked to political candidates about their websites, I've asked, "Where does the website fit into your overall campaign strategy?" (I'm not a real political player, but I was webmaster for Congressional campaign sites in '98 and '00.) The answers to the strategy question will determine what a website should be. With anything one does, having some idea of a goal is an important step towards accomplishing anything. For a herp site especially, there's no right or wrong answer, but one should have a purpose in mind before starting.
Are you creating a site primarily to show off your animals? If so, then you can put all of the bells and whistles on the site. If certain of those tricks aren't compatible with someone's browser or don't look good at a particular resolution, then you've lost nothing. Your purpose is to show off, and there's nothing wrong with narrowing your audience in order to show off to maximum effect.
Are you creating a site primarily to sell animals? If so, then you need to put more emphasis on flexibility than absolute design style. You need a website that will look good at most resolutions and using most browsers. All the fancy stuff in the world won't help you if half of your customers become frustrated because your site really doesn't work for them. You'll still want to create a "cool" factor to draw customers, but you have to be as accessible as you are cool.
Are you creating a site primarily for educational purposes? If so, then your design emphasis must be on maximum accessibility. You don't need to impress anyone with how cool your site is. Instead, you need to provide good information in a format that nearly every browser can display clearly, and you need to cut image size to allow reasonable access by those on dial-up. If your goal is really to educate newbies about husbandry and the general public about these animals, you don't want anyone to give up in frustration over a technical issue.
Secondly, JPEG images seem to have problems with white space surrounding a picture. I recently saw an example of five snakes on a white background. The snakes are blurry on the edges and "bleed" into the white space surrounding them. Sometimes, this problem is caused by having too much compression on the JPEG image. I've had other images that seemed to bleed regardless of how much or little compression that I used. GIF images don't have this problem. Another benefit to GIF images is that one can make the background color (white in many cases) transparent. With a transparent background, the image will show the background color of the page behind it. One image can put the same snakes on either a white background or a dark background. That versatility is often helpful.
Thirdly, one trick with colors is to use colors from an image on the page just as a mat highlights the colors of a framed picture. The eyedropper function on a "photo/paint" type program can grab a color from an image that will be used on a page. It's been so long since I did this trick that I've forgotten the exact steps. However, the point is to collect a color and get the "photo/paint" program to give the "hexadecimal" code for that particular color. (I don't remember whether these codes are really hexadecimal.) One can then use those codes to set background and text colors. For instance, one could use the bright yellow of a pastel ball python for a solid field on one side of the page. One could use the darker gold of a normal for a solid field on the other side of the page. One could use the lighter brown of a blush for solid bars. The text could be the dark brown from a snake's back instead of simple black. Using these colors around the page will bring out the colors of the snakes in the pictures.
Fourth, for navigation, I'd probably use buttons these days. When I had my own site, I used simple text links in the color fields on the left side of the site. I liked that look and programming was fairly simple. I might do it again if I ever restart my site, but I admit that this look seems to be out of style. Buttons can be a bit of a pain to make and program, but they look good. I'd also have an all-text navigation menu at the bottom of the white space on every page.
I'd pay close attention to the contrast between links and background colors. There's a code in HTML that will designate the color of links and viewed links. If one is using a dark-colored background, one should designate the links' colors to be light. I was visiting a page recently where the links were blue because that's how my browser is set, and I couldn't read them against the black background of the page. If the owner of that site had designated his links as a light color, his designation would have overridden my browser settings and allowed me to read his page more easily.
Fifth, putting copyright notices on every page that one creates is a good practice. I realize that pages under construction may not seem to have anything worth protecting, but adding those notices is a good habit to develop.
Sixth, the top of every web page has a title. The HTML code has a place where the web designer can insert a title code, and that code appears at the top of the browser. That code will also be the name of that page when one saves the page to a favorites file in a browser. When designing the pages, a good web designer will title each page so that someone who saves that page to his favorites will know what the page is when he encounters that shortcut in his favorites list in six months. Often, the default title is "home" or something equally generic. "Home" is a lousy title.
Seventh, original caresheets and husbandry articles will enhance any herp website. The snake sites on the web have all kinds of recommendations on various aspects of husbandry. For instance, some sites say that an adult ball python will be happy in a 36"x24"x18" enclosure. Other sites say that an adult ball python needs at least 48" of length. Some of the rack systems mentioned in these forums seem to be using even smaller enclosures for adults. I don't know the "right" answer, but if someone has confidence enough to build a website around snakes, he or she should consider telling the web community what he's/she's doing and why. Putting that information on a page isn't a declaration that everyone else is wrong, but the newbie looking for advice will appreciate reading as many examples of husbandry practice as possible.
A frequent forum contributor (who shall remain nameless in this commentary) has recently published an article about the f/t versus live feeding question. These kinds of articles make his website valuable to the community. I suspect that a search of the phrase "Should You Feed F/T or Live?" would produce this site.
Eighth, I'd love to see someone post growth charts for their animals. Maybe the people who have enough snakes to justify websites have too many animals to chart each one's growth individually. If publishing this information isn't practical, I understand, but someone who could give newbies some numbers to shoot for would be doing a good service to the online herp community.
Most of the sites that I've seen are pretty good. I typically don't evaluate sites in these terms when I'm just surfing (unless something about a site is particularly irritating). I'm not recommending that anyone with an established site make changes. For those who are developing a site, here are my generic thoughts before I've seen what you've done. Feel free to e-mail me specific URLs if you'd like specific comments. I suspect that others would also be willing to make this offer.
Bill
Copyright 2006 by William K. Kelly
(currently for posting on Kingsnake.com forums)
PS. A copyright notice this simple is a good practice for your site. You don't need anything else to establish your claim to your work.
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.
