[thelist] Late-night call for opinions

Susan Wallace susanhw at webcastle.com
Mon Aug 13 00:24:05 CDT 2001


Hi Martin,

(FYI I am also a Mom with teenagers, and it's late so if this is a little 
scattered, I apologize)

First of all - VERY nice site - easy to use, *outstanding* content - and an 
excellent message! I did not have any trouble with the pages loading or 
anything "looking strange", except for a few scripts but you mentioned that 
so I won't outline them. For the most part, I agree with what Sandy said 
(especially about the "Death of an Innocent" story) and I have a few 
comments/suggestions:

The content is outstanding, but it sounds like "preaching" because it is 
written in such a textbook fashion, and the presentation is not shocking 
enough (IMHO) to get your target audience to continue to click. (I see one 
of my kids rolling her eyes and clicking out quickly - maybe that's just me)

I would suggest using a different approach - get their attention with 
something that's "cool" and then stop it with a reality check.
Maybe something visual to go with the items that you listed - except "slang 
it up" a bit - I am sure that someone can help you with some generic slang 
as that is subject to your area of the world,  it would work to use words 
that kids use like "buds" instead of Friends, Chillin' instead of 
socializing, puking instead of vomiting - I know that's gross, but it would 
definitely get some attention and make a point.

Bringing some of the trauma content to the front is a good idea - perhaps 
the "reality check" could be the comments you have from teens in 
Experiences who you describe as "people who made some pretty bad choices or 
who had someone make a bad choice for them and are now having to live with 
the consequences, at least those of them who survived"...my personal visual 
there is a really large font with some kind of cliche... I'm not very good 
at this but perhaps it will spark an idea for you or someone else to build 
on.

It also seems like your content warrants a double audience - 
parents/educators and teens - considering your stated audience, I would put 
"page 3" (as you click in) of Trauma as the main page of Trauma, and then 
include in that list a summation of the information you had on the first 
two pages.

i.e.:

Click Trauma, get a page with:

Explore the inner...

Which part of your...

Do you know...

ADD: Who are the trauma team, and what do they do? What is a neck brace for?

What happens after...


That will bring the content that IMO kids would stick around to read to the 
"front" while including the rest as a bullet point - more or less... On 
pages with the "short attention span" content, you could put a link for 
parents that would go to more detailed information than a kid may want to 
read.

HTH!

Susan Wallace

BTW - This is a very valuable addition to the Internet,  thanks for sharing!



>The url to begin with is
>http://www.partyprogram.com/introduction/index.html.





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