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updated 30 Nov 2002
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Helping you get the most out of your computer
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Creating Web pages and Web sites
When planning a Web page, it is important to plan what you want your page to accomplish and what elements you want it to include. In addition to these traits, which vary from page to page, effective Web pages also tend to include the following elements:
- Focus
- Like any other media presentation, you should create a Web page with a clear purpose in mind and avoid adding elements to the page that distract from this goal. Two of the most common goals for Web pages are marketing products and making information available. Focus helps to make a page effective in achieving its goal and makes it easy for viewers to use.
- Interest
- Formatting is critical in making your page one that people enjoy using, rather than just tolerate. Judicious use of colors for the background and for text, multiple fonts, and graphics can create a comfortable and unified look and feel. To create a really effective page, it can be worth the time and expense to create graphics and color schemes that fit both the image of the page's owner, and the information on the page you are creating.
- Simplicity
- While an effective look and feel is necessary to create an interesting page, it's just as important not to overdo any of the formatting features. Colors and fonts are both most effective in small amounts. Try limiting fonts and colors to two per page. It's important to keep the page's content simple as well. Rather than creating a long page containing everything you want to convey, limit your information to the amount that fits in a single screen, so users can see all of a page's information without needing to scroll down.
Just like creating Web pages, Web site design benefits from thoughtful planning. However, rather than focusing on specific elements of each page, you need to use a process that methodically lays out and creates the relationships between the sites pages, such as the following one:
- Study other Web sites
- Existing, successful sites are one of the best sources for Web site structure and content ideas. In particular, look at sites that achieve similar goals to your own.
- Create a Web hierarchy
- Web sites are composed of multiple Web pages. You want to be sure that people who use your Web site can easily access the pages containing the information they want. A Web hierarchy defines the structure of your Web. Planning the structure for the Web you are creating is an important part of Web site design. For example, certain Web pages should be accessible, through hyperlinks, from the home page. Other pages in the Web may not be accessible from the home page, but from other pages in the site. Identifying the Web hierarchy helps you to visualize the project by illustrating the relationships among the Web pages.
- Create and format the Web pages
- Once you have a starting structure in mind for your Web site, you can create the component pages.
- Establish relationships
- Web pages that are created for a single purpose and that share a theme can only work together as a Web site if they are related. The most common way to relate the pages in a Web site is to create hyperlinks between them.
- Check out
- Before you make your completed Web site available on the Web, you should verify that all the links and components work the way you intend. Generally, giving your Web site a final check includes viewing the pages in a browser, clicking each hyperlink to be sure it opens the intended page, and making sure the page's other components appear and work correctly.
- Publish
- After you complete your Web site, the final step is to make it available on the World Wide Web. This step involves copying all the Web files, including Web pages, graphics, and any other components, to a computer with a permanent connection to the Internet, known as a Web server.
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