Web Site Planning - Page Layout and Design

Planning a web site? So, what is the first thing to do?  What next?  Here are a few general guidelines for planning a web site.  Click a topic for a BRIEF discussion of each planning element. 

• Decide what your message is

• Decide who the audience is

• Decide how to deliver the content

• Decide how sub pages should interrelate

• Decide what common features should appear on every page

• Decide the basic layout for each individual page

The brief discussions of planning at each of the pages above should get you started in your web design efforts.  Still, further study is recommended for the serious web authoring student.  Web by Design by Molly Holzschlag is an excellent book recommended in session 1 to assist in web authoring.  Online information about design may be found at the following sites:

• Designing School Web Sites to Deliver - this site from Jamie Mackenzie provides a full workshop worth of ideas about designing good sites for schools.

• The Design Studio - the online resource by Molly Holzschlag paralleling the content in her book.

• Guide to Web Style published by Sun Microsystems

• Yale Web Style Guide

[Session 1]  [Session 2] [Session 3]  [Session 4]  [Session 5] [HomePage Overview]  [Top]
This site copyrighted (2005) by Dr. Blake West - Please credit when linking to the site!
Kansas NEA - 715 SW 10th Ave.  Topeka, KS  66612.

Web Site Message

Why publish a web site unless you have something to say, some message to share, or some wisdom to offer the world?  Even your personal page has a message - even if it is just to tell the world how wonderful you are.  In any case, planning a page cannot be done unless the content is known in advance.  An effective site will have an intuitive organization that reflects the content on the page - it may also include graphics to enhance aesthetics of the page in a way that also reflects the content. 

Web Site Audience

Chances are good that if you have a message picked out, you also know who you want to tell it to.  With this in mind, you can decide on how complex to make the page.   You can match the writing level on the site with the reading level of the audience.   You can match the size of the text with the size of text the reader is likely used to reading.  You can put less content on a page for a young child, put less multimedia on a site for senior citizens, and balance the amount of graphics and text based on the maturity of the audience.

 

Content Delivery Is the content best given as text, or would a picture be better?  How about a movie?  What should stand out as bold text?  How much of the information should be on each page within the site?	Main topic 1 Sub topic A Sub topic B Sub topic C part C-1 part C-2 Main topic 2 Etc.
Specifically what content should be on each page?  These are a few of the decisions that must be made about a web site.  A good tool to use for dividing the content is an outline.  By using an outline, we know how many pages will be created, we analyze the natural sequence of content, and we ensure that major points are not omitted inadvertently.  Back to top.
Page Interrelations Which page should link to which other pages.  Should every page be able to link to all other pages in  a site or is there a linear relationship between parts of content?
These decisions should be made prior to creating pages so that appropriate links can be incorporated as pages are made AND so that pages may be planned to include common design features (such as a group of intra-site links (like those at the bottom of this page).  Back to top.

Common Features

A well-designed web site uses either graphics, page layout, or navigation tools to give a sense of continuity to all of the pages.  Even a common background on every page can make some sense of connection within a site.  Once again, a thorough discussion of the artistic considerations of unifying elements in a web design are beyond the scope of this course but excellent resources are available in print and on the web.  Refer to the books recommended in session 1 for good design ideas.  Back to top.

Page Layout

Make a sketch - a storyboard - of the content on each page.  Once the storyboard is created, the page may be made by using tables with the necessary columns and rows so that individual cells can contain the elements in the storyboard.  Tools such as FrontPage also allow for groups of cells to be merged on some rows and not on others.  One good idea for learning this skill is to go browsing on the Internet.  When you reach an interesting page, sketch out on paper where you think the table boundaries are.   Then, import/download the page to see in your web editor where the table boundaries actually are.  (Does it go without saying that they are frequently using tables with borders=0 so the boundaries are not visible.

[Session 1]  [Session 2] [Session 3]  [Session 4]  [Session 5] [HomePage Overview]  [Top]
This site copyrighted (2005) by Dr. Blake West - Please credit when linking to the site!
Kansas NEA - 715 SW 10th Ave.  Topeka, KS  66612.