Web Site Design

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Web Site Design
Web site diagrams from the Yale Style Manual at
http//info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html
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General Items of Interest

• People usually do not invest the same time into
  reading a Web page as they would a magazine or
  book.
• You want to keep the reader interested - so you
  want to grab their attention and keep it.
• Since Web pages are hyperlinked, most people do
  not read through them sequentially.

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Why are you creating your site?

• Have clear goals for your Web site in terms of
  why it is there and what it means to provide.
• Who is your audience? Where are they from? How
  are they accessing your site?
• Timeframe
• Type and amount of information
• Maintenance

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Site Design is Information-Centric

• Your information and goals and audience are among
  the factors that guide your design.
• You need to decide how you can chunk (divide)
  the information that you want to present.
• (Sub) categories or by sections?
• By the type of information or chronologically?
• You use this to help create the site structure.

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Strategy 1 Sequential
Good for sequential chunks of information. The
viewer can wander backwards and forwards through
the sequence and even start over when
finished. Easy to use, but hard to explore.
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Strategy 2 Hierarchy
Main page has a list of links to get to the
subcategories. Each of those pages leads you to
the pages below it on the hierarchy. Can be
effective unless information is divided up too
fine. Can be easy to use for the user. Can be
easy to maintain.
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Strategy 3 Grid
Can be good for organizing information into
related sections. Can be difficult for the viewer
to see how the structure works Can be difficult
for the viewer to understand how the information
is related to other info Can be easy to maintain.
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Strategy 4 Exploratory/Web
Allows the user to go from a page to (nearly)
every other page. The user determines the order
and amount of information they want to see. Can
be hard to figure out where youve been.
(user) Can be hard to maintain.
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Web Site Design

• Choose colors so that the text is easy to read.
• Be consistent in your design and how you use
  color and other formatting elements.
• Well chosen backgrounds, font size, alignment and
  other items make the site easy to use.
• Relative links are easier to maintain then
  absolute links

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Web Site Design

• Use components for a purpose and not to show off.
• Too many things can take too long to download
• Can make the page/site too cluttered
• Proofread. Proofread. Proofread.
• Make it easy for your audience to navigate.
• Make sure that your writing is descriptive and
  concise.

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Page Layout Samples
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Sketch out your ideas