Principles of Planning an Educational Web Site
The Basics
- Mission Statement
- What do you want to do?
- Who is your audience?
- What first impression will get their attention?
- What do you want this site to be like in 6 months' time? In a year? Two years?
- If we build it, will they come?
- Inform and/or entertain
- Change and update!
- Give free gifts!
- Planning the Site
- Overall "look and feel"
- Number of areas; approximate number of pages per area
- Map your site: links between areas; navigation; directory structure
- Choose your material: text, graphics, icons
- Detailed Page Design
- Content of each page
- Links from each page (within site and external)
- User interface: icons, forms: according to overall "look and feel"
- Getting the material: type, convert, scan, download
- Integration of graphics and text
- Table of contents for this page?
- Integration into whole site
- Evaluate and improve!
Remember a lot of this will change as you work!
Questions an experienced site reviewer asks:
- Who is the audience and how well are their needs met?
- Are there graphics for art's sake ... or do the graphics enhance the message?
- Is the site coded in such a way that text-only browsers (such as those used by the visually impaired) can navigate the site?
- Is the content fact or propaganda? How much content is there?
- Can I easily discover the site author/sponsor?
- If the site is non-profit, is there information on staff and the board?
- If the site is a government site, is there information about staff, including e-mail access or phone numbers for follow-up?
- Does the site provide links to help with exploration of the topic(s)?
- Is consideration given for those with slow access (14.4 modems)?
- Does the site look good with graphics off?
- Does the site fit the Netscape default window, or does it make me stretch the width and/or curse its depth?
- If the information is something of long-term value, is it printable?
- Is it in frames -- and if so, what's the benefit to the site visitor?
Make Your Life Simpler...
- Build your site in one directory and sub-directories of it. Never link to images outside the directory structure of this particular site.
- Use relative links to files in different directories of the site.
- Use a template to get a uniform "look and feel" and to simplify inclusion of standard elements of each page (e.g. navigation bar, author statement, etc.)
- Call the site's entrance page by the default name (usually index.html) from the start. Similarly, decide on page and image names when you first create them (or even when you plan the site structure) and don't change them.
- Don't use the "translate to Unix" function of your editor if it has one. It removes the PC's line breaks and makes editing more difficult.
- Resist the temptation to make small corrections to a page directly on the Web server (even if you know how). Make all changes in the copy of the file on your PC and upload the corrected page. Yes, even if it's just a one-letter change. Next time you make a major change and all those little corrections that you made directly on the server disappear, you will remember this warning and sigh. Besides, you need a backup of what's on the server anyhow.
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