Step 2: Planning Your Pages

• Design
• Navigation
• Web ethics

Design

Make links context-sensitive and meaningful

Avoid wording such as "Click here for an HTML tutorial."
Instead, use "See the NC State Computing Services' HTML tutorial."
Contextual links make your document more usable, both online and as printed material.

Give information about a document if it is especially long or image-rich

Avoid "See my really cool image page!"
Use instead "See my really cool image page [2800K]!"

Use white (or gray) space

White space is even more important online than for paper documents. Use paragraphs and lists to break up online text. Include blank lines in source documents to make them easy to edit.

Use images and multimedia carefully

You'll learn more about images in Step 5 of this tutorial. Use only those that clarify or illustrate and avoid "image for image's sake;" with images, more isn't better. Also consider the user's browser and server speed; images take much longer to download than plain text, and an excessively long download time can be very annoying.

Always use alternative text with your images. This can provide additional information to all users, but it is critical for those using text-only or audio Web browsers, which read aloud the text in your HTML pages.

Follow accessibility guidelines

Many people use additional "assistive technologies" to access the Web. Be sure to design your pages to include these audiences. Check the accessibility of your Web page and find out how to make it "user friendly" for more people by submitting its URL to Bobby at http://www.cast.org/bobby/.

Consider differences in browsers

Different browsers and even different versions of the same browser almost always display Web pages differently; for example, headings and preformatted text. Test your pages on all the browsers if you can.

Design a page for printing (or not)

This is a tough one and requires that you evaluate how your page is likely to be used. Should it be formatted to print easily? If so, then it may need to be a long, scrolling document, which is sometimes difficult to navigate online. But if you want the document to be printed, why is it online in the first place? If printing the document might be beneficial for some users, then keep that in mind as you design it.

Navigation

Refer to your previous material

References to previous sections or pages in your Web site should be very specific and probably include links. Also be sure that visitors to your pages can't avoid seeing what you're claiming came previously.

Keep page size small if possible

Avoid long, scrolling documents. They're hard to navigate, i.e., it's difficult to find the same place inside one when you revisit it later. In general, long documents lessen the hypertextual advantages of HTML. A good maximum length is about three monitor "screenfuls," but monitor screen sizes vary considerably.

Provide navigation cues

Instead of relying on the "Back" button built into most browsers, you should provide explicit cues and links for navigation, at the minimum answering these user questions:

• Where am I?
• How do I get back to the beginning?

Use consistent navigation options

If you begin by using one navigation scheme (e.g., links in a vertical list), stick to it wherever possible. You might consider a navigation bar at both the top and the bottom of pages.

Web Ethics

State the status of your document

Although almost everything online is in constant revision (much to the consternation of some), you should inform readers of the state of your document, especially if you know change is in the air. There are many "Under Construction" images that let people know you're still working on a document or certain sections of it.

Update, update, update!

Old information is sometimes more harmful than none at all. If you place information on the Web be sure to keep it updated. Date representation varies around the world, so spell out the name of the month to avoid ambiguity.

"Last modified 8/4/02 by rmn" could be intepreted as both August 4 and April 8.
"Last modified August 4, 2002 by rmn" is preferred.

Offer contact information

Be sure to give the name and email address of the person who's in charge of the document on at least the first page.

Refer to or copy other people's pages?

In general, use a link to refer to information that you believe should be mentioned, but that you have no power to update. This way you always get the most up-to-date information from that source.

Copy information (text, images and multimedia) only when it's legal (and then with appropriate permission and attribution), and when it's not likely to change without your knowledge or ability to update quickly. If you are in doubt, contact the owner of material you want to copy.

Go on to Step 3: Creating your pages

Go back to Step 1: What's allowed on Web pages

Return to the Introduction