How to make a website that doesn’t need an update in 10 years? Make it fun, relevant, timeless and entertaining.
In 2001 Back40 was just getting started. My wife, Sandy, and I were building websites in our spare bedroom in our little house in Prague, Oklahoma. Through tenacity and a little luck, I wrangled the opportunity to redesign the National Cowboy Museum (now known as The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum). Again, this was 2001 and the whole site, over 100 pages, was built as static HTML pages in Dreamweaver. Good times.
Shortly after the National Cowboy Museum was launched, it won a best website award – and we were then contracted to develop the children’s website for the museum. The website featured a set of cowboy characters, educational materials, interactive exhibits and Flash games. All the art on the website was hand-drawn by me. In a previous career, I was a nationally syndicated cartoonist. All the Flash was programmed by me. I was not a Flash programmer in a previous career. I had to learn that. More good times.
So that was in 2002 and now the website is coming up on it’s 10 year anniversary without a single revision, that has to be some kind of record, no?
I’d like to thank the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum for the opportunity to build this website for them and for our 11+ year working relationship. We currently assist the museum with their museum store website (design and hosting). Working with a web client for 11+ years – shouldn’t that be some sort of record too?
We measure client relationships in decades, not years. That sounds a bit arrogant, perhaps I should reel that back a bit.
Feel free to play some games and listed listen to some happy cowboy songs.
