|
| |
Users of Web documents don't just look at
information, they interact with it in novel ways that have no precedents
in paper document design. The graphic user interface (GUI) of a computer
system includes the interaction metaphors, images and concepts used to
convey function and meaning on the computer screen, the detailed visual
characteristics of every component of the graphic interface, and
functional sequence of interactions over time that produce the
characteristic "look and feel" of Web pages and hypertext linked
relationships. Graphic design and visual "signature" graphics are not just
used to "jazz up" Web pages  graphics are an integral part of the user's experience
with your site. In interactive documents it is impossible to fully
separate graphic design from issues of interface design.
 |
Web pages versus
conventional document design
Most of our current concepts about
structuring information stem from the organization of printed books and
periodicals, and the library indexing and catalog systems that developed
around printed information. The "interface standards" of books in the
English-speaking world are well established and widely agreed-upon, and
detailed instructions for creating books may be found in guides like
The Chicago Manual of Style. Every feature of a book, from the
table of contents to the index and footnotes has evolved over the
centuries, and readers of early books faced some of the same
organizational problems facing the users of hypermedia documents today.
Gutenberg's bible of 1456 is often cited as the first modern book, yet
even after the explosive growth of publishing that followed Gutenberg it
took more than 100 years for page numbering, indexes, tables of contents,
and even title pages to become routine features of books. Web documents
will undergo a similar evolution and standardization of the way
information is organized and made available in electronic form.
|
Design precedents in
print
Although networked interactive hypermedia documents do pose
novel challenges to information designers, most of the guidance you need
to design, create, assemble, edit, and organize multiple forms of media is
not radically different from current practice in print media. Most Web
documents can be made to conform to The Chicago Manual of Style
conventions for editorial style and text organization. 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.
Don't get so lost in the novelty of Web pages that basic standards of
editorial and graphic design get tossed aside.
Make your Web pages free-standing
World
Wide Web pages are different from books and other documents in one crucial
respect: hypertext links allow users to access a single Web page with no
preamble. Thus Web pages need to be more independent than pages in a
conventional book. This usually means that the headers and footers of Web
pages are more informative and elaborate than printed pages. It would be
absurd to repeat the copyright, author, and date of a book at the bottom
of every page, but individual Web pages often need such information
because a single Web page may be the only part of your site some users
ever see. This problem of making documents free-standing is not unique to
Web pages. Professional journals, magazines, and most newspapers repeat
the date, volume, and issue numbers at the top or bottom of each printed
page because they know that their readers often rip out newspaper articles
or photocopy pages from journals and need that citation information to
trace the original source of the article.
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.
Who
Who is speaking? This question is so
basic, and the information is so often taken for granted that Web authors
often overlook the most fundamental piece of information a reader needs to
assess the provenance of a document: who is saying this to me? Whether the
page is from an individual author or an institution, always tell your
reader who created the Web page. The flood of Web sites propagating
incorrect or actively misleading material on the TWA Flight 800 crash
offer a vivid example of how "information" of no known origin or
authenticity can quickly come to dominate legitimate inquiry and
discussion.
What
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.
When
Timeliness is an important element in
evaluating the worth of a document. We take information about the age of
most paper documents for granted: newspapers, magazines, and virtually all
office correspondence is dated. So date every Web page, and change the
date whenever the document is updated. This is especially important in
long or complex online documents that are updated regularly, but that may
not look different enough to signal a change in content to occasional
readers. Corporate information, personnel manuals, product information,
and other technical documents delivered as Web pages should always have
revision dates.
Where
The Web is an odd "place" that has
huge informational dimensions but few explicit cues to the physical
location where a document originates. Click on a Web link, and you could
be connected to a Web server in Sydney, Australia, Chicago, USA, or almost
anywhere else with Internet connections. Unless you are well versed in
parsing URLs it can be difficult to tell where a page originates. This is
the World Wide Web after all, and the question of where a document came
from is sometimes inseparable from who the document came from. Always tell
the reader where you are from, with (if it is relevant) your corporate or
institutional affiliations.
Incorporating the "home" URL on at least the main pages in your
site is an easy means of maintaining the connection to where a page
originated. Once the reader has saved the page as a text file or printed
the page onto paper this connection may be lost. Although recent versions
of the major Web browsers now allow you to automatically include the URL
in anything you print, many people never take advantage of these optional
features. Too many of us now have mountains of printed Web pages laying
around and no easy way of re-finding the Web locations where those
documents originated.
Consistently state the title, the author, the author's
institutional affiliations, the revision date, and provide at least one
link to a local home page in every WEB page in your system. Put the "home
page" URL on a few major pages in your site. Include these basic elements
and you will have gone 90% of the way toward providing your readers with
an understandable Web user interface.
References
|
Lemay, L. 1996. Teach yourself Web
publishing in a week, 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Sams
Publishing.
December, J., and N. Randall. 1995. The
World Wide Web unleashed. Indianapolis: Sams Publishing.
University of Chicago Press. 1982. Chicago
manual of style. 13th Ed. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Xerox Corporation. 1988. Xerox publishing
standards. New York: Watson-Guptill
Publications.
| | | |
 
|
