Objectives

Local Focus: About/For/By the Community

Annandale Online contains information about the community, for the community (not aimed at tourists or visitors), and consists of contributions by the residents of the community. While the Internet can provide access to all corners of the globe, the focus of content for Annandale Online is local.
The target audience is not only the local population, but also the Second Community, people who live away from Annandale but have ties here, such as AHS Alumni, expatriates (former residents), seasonal residents, and friends and family of local residents.

Useful: Broad and Deep Local Information

Information:
Annandale Online contains useful, valuable local content. Early emphasis was on breadth of information, covering all or most of the elements of the community. Later more depth has been added, such as more details of each group or entity, and the website has grown as residents realize the potential to have even more information on the website.

Links:
Website links relate to and reinforce linkages in the physical community. Numerous links to e-mail addresses on pages throughout the site encourage users to add more content to the community website. Links within the website are encouraged, and any request to be linked from one page or site to another is carefully considered and obliged if reasonable.

Communication:
E-mail directories and numerous e-mail links from content pages facilitate communication within Annandale. An information base with strong organizational structure contributes to a stronger community due to increased connectedness.

Usable: User friendly

Annandale Online strives to be easy to use -- a very user friendly website with consistent and numerous navigation tools throughout the site. While pages that are deeper into the website (reached by numerous clicks) may be unique and creative, the top levels must be useful and usable, full of content and easy to use.

Collaborative: "By" the community

Annandale Online will reflect a truly networked community only if the residents themselves contribute to it. One person, or even a small group of people, cannot hope to gather the vast amount of information that could and should be on the community website. Since the website is a virtual manifestation of the physical community, the collaboration that is necessary to create consistency throughout the website will illustrate that the people and institutions in Annandale are working together.

This website needs to be not only about and for the community, but also by the community members themselves. A community website is not a "broadcast" medium, a "one-to-many" format like TV or radio or newspapers where one source distributes information to many people. A key to the success of the website is the support of many elements of the community, so that it is not the the effort of one or just a few people.
There must be collaboration/communication with and among all entities in the community, including other communication media: the Advocate, Cable TV local access channel, the electronic kiosk, and the school district newsletter.

High Quality: A Source of Pride

Annandale Online must maintain high standards. It is a reflection of the community to the world, and we want to be proud of this representation of Annandale.
Pages must be carefully proofed and edited before being published to the web. Information must be accurate and current.
Because a website will represent the community in cyberspace we want a positive reflection of the community for both local residents and visitors. Local residents should be proud of their website, and visitors should view us favorably.

Sustainable

An indicator of success of the website is that it is sustainable, that it can survive the departure of the original initiators. If the content of the website is largely contributed by the individuals and institutions in the community rather than the initiator/coordinator, then they will have a greater stake in the continued success of the community website. Therefore the website must involve as much of the community as possible from the start to ensure long term sustainability.