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Table of Contents
"Proper World Wide Web site design is largely a matter of
balancing the structure and relationship of menu or "home"
pages and individual content pages or other linked graphics and
documents. The goal is to build a hierarchy of menus and pages
that feels natural and well-structured to the user, and doesn’t
interfere with their (sic) use of the Web site or mislead them."
Most of what an organization needs to know about creating clear,
comprehensive, and consistent internal publishing standards is
already available in guides like the Xerox Publishing Standards:
A Manual of Style and Design.
Given these potential difficulties in creating Web sites that
are both easy to use and full of complex content, the best design
strategy is to consistently apply a few basic document design
principles in every Web page you create. The basic elements of
a document aren't complicated, and have almost nothing to do with
Internet technology. It's just like high school journalism class:
who, what, when, and where.
The main interface problem in Web sites is the lack of a sense
of where you are within the local organization of information.
Clear, consistent icons, graphic identity schemes, and graphic
or text-based overview and summary screen can give the user confidence
that they can find what they are looking for without wasting time.
All documents need clear titles to capture the reader's attention,
but for several reasons peculiar to the Web this basic editorial
element is especially crucial. The document title is often the
first thing browsers of World Wide Web documents see as the page
comes up. In pages with lots of graphics the title may be the
only thing the users sees for several seconds as the graphics
download onto the page. Additionally, the page title will become
the text of a browser "bookmark" if the user chooses
to add your page to their list of URLs. A misleading or ambiguous
title, or a title that contains more technical gibberish than
English, will not help the user remember why they bookmarked your
page.
Home pages aimed at browsers should be analogous to magazine
covers. The objective is to entice the casual browser with strong
graphics and bold statements of content. All the links on your
home page should point inward, toward pages within your site.
Provide a very clear and concise statement of what is in the site
that might interest the reader.
Expert and frequent users generally have very specific goals
in mind, and will appreciate detailed text menus, site structure
outlines, or comprehensive site indexes that allow fast search
and retrieval.
The best-designed reference Web sites allow users to quickly
pop into the site, find what they want, and then easily print
or download what they find. Typically there is no "story"
to tell, so the usage patterns are totally non-linear. Content
and menu structure must be carefully organized to support fast
search and retrieval, easy downloading of files, and convenient
printing options. Keep the graphics minimal to speed download
times, and you may want to investigate search software instead
of relying exclusively on index-like lists of links. Contact time
is typically brief, the shorter the better.
Create sample scenarios with different types of users seeking
information from your site. Would an experienced user seeking
a specific piece of information be helped or hindered by your
home page design? Would a novice be intimidated by a complex text-based
menu? Testing your designs and getting feedback from users is
the best way to see whether your design ideas are giving users
what they want from your site.
Interface studies have shown that users prefer menus that present
a minimum of five to seven links, and that users prefer a few
very dense screens of choices over many layers of simplified menus.
- Organizing
Principles
Some basic organizing principles that you may wish to apply
to your website are: sequencing, grid, hierarchy, and web. Each
of these organizational strategies have their own strengths
and weaknesses and are best suited for particular types of audiences
and topics.
© Copyright 1997 Patrick J. Lynch
By augmenting the standard Web viewer "Back" and "Forward"
buttons with "Next Page" and "Previous Page"
buttons built into the page itself the user then has interface
tools to navigate through the information in your site in the
sequence you intended.
The four basic steps in organizing your information are to divide
it into logical units, establish a hierarchy of importance and
generality, use the hierarchy to structure relationships among
chunks, then analyze the functional and aesthetic success of your
system.
Establish a layout grid and a style for handling your text and
graphics, then stick with it to build a consistent rhythm and
unity across all the pages of your site. Repetition is not boring;
it gives your site a consistent graphic identity that reinforces
a distinct sense of "place," and that makes your site
more memorable.
Divide the page up into chunks of two to three printed pages
worth of information, including inlined graphics or figures. Use
the power of hypertext links to take full advantage of the Web
medium.
Provide a link to a separate file that contains the full-length
text combined into one page, designed so the reader can print
or save all the related information in just one step. Don't forget
to include the URL of the online version within the text of that
page so users can find updates and correctly cite the page source.
In general, you should favor shorter Web pages for:
- Home pages, and menu or navigation pages elsewhere in your
site.
- Documents to be browsed and read online.
- Pages with very large graphics.
In general, longer documents are:
- Easier to maintain (they are all in one piece, with fewer
links).
- More like the structure of their paper counterparts (not chopped
up).
- Much easier for users to download and print.
Always use the GIF graphic format for diagrams, navigation graphics,
or any graphic that contains text.
For best performance, make sure all of your image source tags
include height and width information (even for small button graphics).
Apple Computer, Inc. 1992. Macintosh human interface guidelines.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Horton, W. K. 1994. Designing and writing online documentation,
2nd edition. New York: Wiley.
Microsoft Corporation. 1992. The Windows interface: An application
design guide. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press.
Shneiderman, B. 1992. Designing the user interface: Effective strategies
for effective human-computer interaction. 2nd ed., Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley.
University of Chicago Press. 1982. The Chicago manual of style.
13th ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, A. 1974. The design of books. Salt Lake City: Peregrine
Smith, Inc.
Xerox Corporation. 1988. Xerox publishing standards. New York:
Watson-Guptill Publications.
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