HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
To solve the problem of disorientation, you can use clues on each page. Here are two
ideas:
Provide a way out. Return to Home Page is an excellent link.
n
Include a map of the overall structure on each page, with a “you are here” indica-
tion somewhere in the map. It doesn't have to be an actual visual map, but provid-
ing some sort of context goes a long way toward preventing your visitors from
getting lost.
n
The next step in planning your website is to figure out what content goes on what page
and to come up with some simple links for navigation between those pages.
If you use one of the structures described in the preceding section, much of the organiza-
tion might arise from that structure—in which case, this section will be easy. However, if
you want to combine different kinds of structures or if you have a lot of content that
needs to be linked together in sophisticated ways, sitting down and making a specific
plan of what goes where can be incredibly useful later as you develop and link each indi-
vidual page.
What's Storyboarding and Why Do I Need It?
Storyboarding
a website is a concept borrowed from filmmaking in which each scene
and each individual camera shot is sketched and roughed out in the order in which it
occurs in the movie. Storyboarding provides an overall structure and plan to the film that
enables the director and staff to have a distinct idea of where each individual shot fits
into the overall movie.
The storyboarding concept works quite well for developing web pages. The storyboard
provides an overall rough outline of what the website will look like when it's done,
including which topics go on which pages, the primary links, and maybe even some con-
ceptual idea of what sort of graphics you'll be using and where they'll go. With that rep-
resentation in hand, you can develop each page without trying to remember exactly
where that page fits into the overall website and its often complex relationships to other
pages.
In the case of large sets of documents, a storyboard enables different people to develop
various portions of the same website. With a clear storyboard, you can minimize duplica-
tion of work and reduce the amount of contextual information each person needs to
remember.
