More important to me (as a former employee of a popular internet site) than songs or fancy designs are:

1. Usability - how easy is it to use the features and get around?

2. "Three clicks to paydirt" - is the important info within three clicks?

3. Content:

a. Is the copy (words) is relevant?

b. Is the site intended for members or visitors? Some chapter sites have virtually no info or descriptions. It would be cool to read about how much money you raised for X charity, that three of your members are on Student Government, that you have a 3.10 GPA, etc. It's virtually free PR!!

c. Pictures often show more than you can tell, but captions or album headers can tell your story (formals, philanthropy, sisterhood events). Random pictures of people in costumes or sitting around don't tell you much, but sharing that this pic is from a recruitment skit where you performed "We Go Together" from Grease, that these shots are from Greek Week when you danced to "I Got A Feeling", or that this photo is from "campus clean-up 2009", tells visitors so much more about your chapter.

Juding by the current poll and the responses, the answer is a resounding NO. Poll says 20 don't like it to 1 person who does.

I do this too, and I would imagine a PNM would as well. If music pops up while you're opening the pages? Or even just one? Pain. In. The. Butt. Music automatically makes me dislike the website and the organization/company/whatever it represents, even if just a little. But probably a lot. And you don't want to do anything to turn PNMs off if you can help it.

I also used to work in usability and ree-Xi gives sound advice- especially about the content. Whether they are PNMs or members or parents or just interested people stumbling upon the site, people want to know more about the group. Put real information on there that gives the viewer a taste of who you are and why you are so great. Include captions or descriptions for people not in the know. Music does not tell your chapter's story. Put your efforts toward the content rather than the gimmicks.

Hijack...I see you're in the Seattle area. Back in the dark ages of web sites, back when there was one book on usability, we used to do focus groups and monitor people navigating the site. You know, the typical two-sided mirror, the surveys, etc. This was before people were internet savvy and intuitive into the ways that most sites worked.

That part of the development process was so trying, second only to QA testing. We didn't have a QA dept for quite a while, and Product Development (my dept) manually wrote and performed all the test cases prior to launches, logging bugs and following up on fixes. Launches scheduled for midnight (when users were less likely to be on, on either coast and internationally) usually completed around 5 am, at which point we started regression testing. You never knew what was going to break!! Of course, with 15+ international sites, it was a good 18 hours before every site ran the course of a business day.

Ok, flashback over. Deep breath now...lol

Continuing hijack- I actually miss usability a bit! I was on a slightly different side of things, working on internal applications for "a major software developer". I ran user acceptance testing and did some app support, and enjoyed playing the roles of dumb user & user advocate in addition to finding business bugs. You know, things that worked by design or technically got you from point A to point B but just royally sucked? (I swear, By Design is the worst designation ever. It basically means "we know it sucks but that's how we interpreted someone's request- so deal with it and we'll consider addressing it in vNext but only if you give us 20 pages of documentation on it.") The dev teams HATED me :D but the test teams loved it. I'm great at breaking things. I wouldn't mind getting back into that world, or full on usability, someday. Then I could really make a case for that anthropology & psychology degree! Oh well, business process improvement is fun too. Sigh... /hijack

But seriously, OP- nix the music. There's a reason I avoid myspace like the plague... everybody's page is filled with netspeak, weird flashy images, and blaring music! That's okay if you're a tween (or maybe a middle-aged someone trying to relive your youth), but probably isn't your target audience.

Okay, so what if there is a splash page involved? (Apparently splash pages are really old fashioned?) And it includes a short picture slide show, should there be music just there? Of course there is a link at the bottom saying SKIP INTRO.

Example: http://www.aphiucla.com/
(This was the first one I could find not using Flash)


I know pnms like that cutesy stuff (I know I did as one!) and so just a bit of music there.
What I've found from the other thread of "Best Chapter Websites" is everyone thought the websites w/ music was cute, but I guess that was just the design, etc.

I'll definitely keep that in mind about the captions,etc.

Skip the splash page. It's almost as annoying as the background music -- all it does is slow someone down from getting to the information they're looking for.

Cutesy doesn't mean music. Personally as a PNM I was much more interested in the pictures, design, colors, content, etc to get a feel for the chapter. It's what you say and how you say it that shows off the group's personality. Cutesy is fine, just don't assume cutesy means music.

Unless people specifically said "I love this one because it has music!", don't assume they like it just for the music. My computer is muted most of the time, so if there was music when I was browsing I wouldn't notice it. (When it is unmuted, though, and I get a sudden blast of unwelcome music... I am not a happy camper)

ETA: I just went through the other thread and did not see a single mention of music. Correlation /= causation.

Agreed. Plus the first image is one of girls in bikinis in a pool - enforcing a stereotype. Another pic of a girl in a bikini lying on top of another girl in a bikini - as an old fuddie duddie, I was kind of turned off by it.

ETA: anything from Legally Blond has really been overdone.

Again, most people who answered said NO to music. It doesn't matter where it is, unless it's in a video that is optional to play at some other point in the site - like of a Greek Week performance or a "sisterhood video", etc. NOT automatic.

I clicked on this link and all I get is a white page that goes nowhere.

Seriously, this isn't MySpace. (Which, of course, people are leaving in droves.) SKIP THE MUSIC. NO ONE LIKES IT.

Especially when they're chest to chest laying on top of each other.

:confused:

All of this times eleven billion.

There seem to be really strong feelings about this. haha

So, thank you! :]

I just wanted to make clear that this isn't my sorority. :]