Web Style Guide Ch 2 & 3 Highlights
Content / Themes of Web Sites
-Design with your audience in mind
*Offer services and products, not just insider corporate information
*Realize users have slower connections and outdated technology
-"Chunk" content into easily readable and digestible sections
-Five basic steps in organizing Information
1. Divide your content into logical units
2. Establish a hierarchy of importance among the units
3. Use the hierarchy to structure relations among units
4. Build a site that closely follows your information structure
5. Analyze the functional and aesthetic success of your system
-The web is bi-directional. Users expect to be able to provide feedback
-Custom server error pages should be well-designed and informative, offering users ways back to content or how to find what they were looking for
Basic information structures
-Pages must be freestanding
-Header/footer needed universally since people can access a webpage from any point
-Make clear the "who, what, where, when"
-Keep navigation metaphors simple, consistent
-Use consistent modular designs
-Consistency and predictability are key
-Webpages are not books
* with freestanding pages, ordered documents need a more intuitive alternative to the non-linear "back" and "forward" buttons (static links to "next page" and "previous page" are helpful)
Elements / Parts of a Web site
-Every webpage needs:
* An informative title (which also becomes the text of any bookmark to the page)
* The creator's identity (author or institution)
* A creation or revision date
* At least one link to a local home page or menu page
* The "home page" URL on the major menu pages in your site
Basic components of the GUI
-"In interactive documents graphic design cannot be separated from issues of interface design."
-Menus need to be logical and concise, but avoid nesting too many unnecessary steps