Web Page design for lyric sites

20 Oct 99 - 03:41 PM (#125997)
Subject: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: Ed Pellow

I'm currently in the planning stages of producing some web pages for a couple of folk artists (sorry for not being more specific - but I don't want my idea stolen before I've had a chance)

I intend the pages to, (amongst many other things), include a lyric/chord archive of 250+ songs. I'm interested in hearing views on how these should be best organised for easy navigation.

Do you prefer an A-Z index, songs listed by album, songs listed by recording date?

If you click on a link for a particular song does it annoy you if the text is part of a much larger page?

If you are a non-musician, would you prefer lyrics presented without the 'annoying' chord symbols?

Any views on the above, or general design comments for a folkie fan page would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Ed

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20 Oct 99 - 03:50 PM (#126003)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: Margo

Ed, why not all three? A-Z, by album, and date? For me, if I had to choose one, I'd take the A-Z index.

I don't mind the text being part of a larger page IF it is clear where the selected item begins.

Margarita

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20 Oct 99 - 04:33 PM (#126021)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: Freddie Fox

A-Z by all means - for ignos like me who know a lot of songs but usually have not the foggiest who they're sung by or what they're recorded on, album and artist lists are very frustrating. I wouldn't advise chord symbols - use the letters, and, if you feel it appropriate, include a list of the commoner symbols in your page.

Shall be very interested to see it [and you may well get more commissions coming your way!] Good luck

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20 Oct 99 - 04:56 PM (#126036)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: MMario

As far as an index goes, I would say:
alphabetical by title AND by first line
by album
by artist
and by any other way you can possibly think of indexing them. You can never,ever have too many ways of accessing data.

Make sure your copyright attributions and declarations are on EVERY page

one song per page is excellent. what many people forget is that a great many people still are using slower modems and to have to wait while an entire list of songs downloads, when all you may want is a single one is beyond painful.

please keep the site as "generic" as possible with regard to browsers. (on bended knee I beg you!)

MMario

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20 Oct 99 - 05:41 PM (#126057)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: katlaughing

A-Z is great, as long as one knows the title and/or artist. If you can, it would be better to include a search function like the DT has; I have found other lyric sites to be most useful that way.

I don't think the chords make much difference. A few sound clips would be nice and/or written music, for those of us who like to read the actual music, too.

I prefer the one song per page deal, too.

The main thing I've noticed, in general, is to keep the first page fairly simple and quick to download. If people have to wait a while for an opening page to come up they are just as likely to move on to another site.

I would be very interested in seeing these when you are done. Please keep us up to date on your efforts.

katlaughing

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20 Oct 99 - 05:59 PM (#126078)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: unclenort

for my first attempt at a similar project i used the old A-Z format using bookmarks to navagate through a single HTML document with the songs arranged in alphabetical order. here's the results click here
. effective, but it has some serious drawbacks. with 240 songs download time is a killer and IMHO its sloppy.

right now i'm reorganizing all this and more using a java tree menu applet. it looks like the folders inside of windows device manager. you Know you click the +sign next to the folder and three(or how many you want) drop down under it. in my example the first folder is songbook click on that and 4 more folders drop down;lyrics,lyrics and chords,guitar tab,and banjo tab. click on one of those and you get 26 folders labled A-z. click on the letter that the song your looking for starts with and all the songs that begin with that letter are listed. click on the song your looking for and presto it loads the HTML page with what you are looking for.

some of the advantages of useing the tree menu are its very easy to navagate, it holds an infinite amount of data(in this case songs) on a single page, and its very neat and proffesional looking. on the down side, its a little extra work for the webmaster. but all things considered i think the results are worth it.
i hope that this is understandable, sometimes i'm not very clear.
unclenort

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20 Oct 99 - 06:21 PM (#126094)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: unclenort

ye haw this one works.

thanks for cleaning up joe. sorry i made the mess.

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20 Oct 99 - 06:47 PM (#126104)
Subject: RE: Web Page design for lyric sites
From: katlaughing

Maybe this one will work for you: Just guessing from the view source probably not right. Sorry...

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