DemoFuse: Create a tour for your website in minutes
Why hasn’t anybody thought of this before? I have no idea, but thank goodness they have now.
Do newcommers to your site have any idea what a blogroll is? What you mean by del.icio.us links? What the heck a Twitter stream is? Maybe they do, but maybe they’d like a little guided tour of your blog or web site. Something that tells them what they should read, where to click, and what special features you spent hours coding, but nobody seems to find. Or even more importantly, maybe they’d like you to explain what all the badges on your site are, particularly the ones related to RSS and subscribing.
Enter DemoFuse. It’s a site that creates a guided tour for your website. Well, it doesn’t create it, it gives you the tools to do so yourself. I created one for Teach42.com.
I found it incredibly easy to create. Just choose what you want to do, drag it to the right place, and add your text. Couldn’t be easier. I only have one gripe about the site. My front page winds up pretty long, so after the first few steps, I”m highlighting things that you need to scroll down to see. Right now, DemoFuse doesn’t scroll down for the viewer. So there’s a few points where it doesn’t’ look like anything is highlighted in my tour, even though the description has changed. I emailed in that suggestion and they said that they’re already working on implementing it.
Other than that, I’m a huge fan. Two thumbs up and 4 out of 5 stars. Give it a whirl and add a tour to your own website!
- Ning: Build your own MySpace
- Best of Bookmarklets
- Day 16: Your Greatest Hits
- What’s on the front page? Depends on where you are
- Send To Flickr Bookmarklet
Tim Childers
6/7/2007
I don’t know why no one has thought of this before, but I’m glad they have now! I “stumbled” across this site a couple of days ago and am working with it now to create lessons for kids in our computer classes. I’m not really sure where I’m going with it yet, but think about these little pop-up boxes that explain math problems as the steps for solving them are listed down the page. Or, consider pointing out how revision is taking place within an essay, paragraph, or just a sentence. What about describing the inner workings of a cell? The possibilities are endless. And, with the interactivity on the part of the student, he or she is more likely to be engaged with the webpage than just asking them to “read this.” Great tool!
Dani Abernethy
6/9/2007
Steve, this is very much needed for the Discovery Educator Website. How many times have you had teachers register for the site and think they are a STAR DEN member? Using this tool would be wonderful to help guide the teachers to the registration section and even help distinguish which features are only for STAR DEN members. I just did a training on another topic and shared the DEN site with the teachers during lunch. I had a few that told me if I had not guided them through, they may have gotten lost.
Thanks for sharing!
[...] Teach42 blog by Steve Dembo recently pointed out Demofuse, a new online application that allows you to [...]
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