HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
Make Each Page Stand on Its Own
As you write, keep in mind that your visitors could jump to any of your web pages from
anywhere. For example, you can structure a page so that section four distinctly follows
section three and has no other links to it. Then someone you don't even know might cre-
ate a link to the page starting at section four. From then on, visitors could find them-
selves at section four without even knowing that section three exists.
Be careful to write each page so that it stands on its own. The following guidelines will
help:
Use descriptive titles
—The title should provide not only the direct subject of this
page, but also its relationship to the rest of the pages on the site.
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Provide a navigational link
—If a page depends on the one before it, provide a
navigational link back to that page (and also a link up to the top level, preferably).
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Avoid initial sentences such as the following
—”You can get around these prob-
lems by…,” “After you're done with that, do this…,” and “The advantages to this
method are….” The information referred to by
these
,
that
, and
this
are off on some
other page. If these sentences are the first words your visitors see, they're going to
be confused.
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18
Be Careful with Emphasis
Use emphasis sparingly in your text. Paragraphs with a whole lot of words in
boldface
or
italics
or ALL CAPS are hard to read, whether you use them several times in a para-
graph or to emphasize long strings of text. The best emphasis is used only with small
words such as
and
,
this
, or
but
.
Link text also is a form of emphasis. Use single words or short phrases for link text. Do
not use entire passages or paragraphs. Figure 18.6 illustrates a particularly bad example
of too much emphasis obscuring the rest of the text.
By removing some of the boldface and using less text for your links, you can consider-
ably reduce the amount of clutter in the paragraph, as you can see in Figure 18.7.
Be especially careful of emphasis that moves or changes, such as marquees, blinking
text, or animation. Unless the animation is the primary focus of the page, use movement
and sound sparingly.
