[Sigia-l] expert vs novice

[Skot Nelson]

On Oct-20-2005, at 4:17 PM, Patrick Kennedy wrote:

> I haven't yet had a chance to research the audience further than  
> that, but I wanted to get a heads up on how I might go about  
> designing a solution for each, using the same underlying data.

Assuming this isn't a technical question, but rather a usability  
question. Any decent Content Management System should be able to spin  
the two different versions of your site.

> Can anyone give me the benefit of their experience in doing such a  
> thing? Anything to watch out for?

Don't call them "expert" and "novice" sites. You'll likely annoy the  
novices.

Other than that, it's hard to be specific. I used to advocate  
splitting distinct communication channels into distinct sites - an  
analogy (albeit a bad one) for clothes shopping would be to have  
men.jpeterman.com and women.jpeterman.com

In my case, we were able to ensure that all of the communications  
materials that went to the experts had a specific URL on it, while  
general communications had another. Providing each distinct  
communications channel with their own online resource worked very well.

Marketing departments like the term "communications channel" too.
--
Scott Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com
http://www.penguinstorm.com/