Dear Tech Talk-- I've been asked to develop a series of World Wide Web pages for my library. I use the Web on a regular basis, and I've seen some poorly designed Web pages. I want to be sure that I design pages that are useful to people at my institution and provide a good impression of my institution to others. I know the pages have to be written in HTML, but beyond that I feel pretty clueless. Can you help?

--Lost in a Web

Dear Lost- Anyone who has explored the World Wide Web has encountered pages that are dismal to read. The text may be too dense; too many images may clutter the page; pages may be too long; the choice of color for the background and text may impair readability; there may be no sense of organization; it may take too long to download images. Any combination of these features will provide sufficient reasons for people to avoid using a Web site, no matter how useful the information. Within this column, it's not possible to address all Web design issues. However, I can provide some tips and techniques to get you started designing attractive, well-organized Web pages.

Unless you are working at a relatively small institution, consider using a Web development team. There are several advantages to a team approach:

1. There are more people to develop ideas and share the work;

2. Using a team provides a practical way for more staff to learn new skills which can be incorporated into other activities;

3. A well-chosen team provides view points from a variety of perspectives so there is less chance that something important is left out.

Look at the web pages designed by other libraries by checking out the library sites that have been collected by Yahoo --

http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries/.

Web pages affiliated with all kinds of libraries (academic, public, school, and special) can be found at this site. Identify appealing ideas from different pages; make copies of the pages that are the most appealing; use your browser to save the source files for these pages. Next, consider the development of Web pages in much the same way that you develop a new instruction session. Clearly identify the following elements for the pages to be designed:

1. Audiences, both primary and secondary;
2. Audiences' needs;
3. Library's needs;
4. Goals and objectives.

A broad picture should emerge which can be used to develop a more defined outline of what individual pages will contain. Once the outline is developed, get it down on paper to see how the pieces fit together. If possible, draw a flow chart of the interconnections between the pages, using a method that can be easily changed as ideas develop. Use a word processor to create a mock-ups of each page. At this preliminary stage, keep in mind page length and the number of levels people may have to maneuver through before they find needed information. Most users don't want to wander through lengthy pages; nor do they like to move down 6 or 7 pages before they find needed information. Try to keep page lengths to about 2-3 screens and depths of no more than 4 or 5 levels.

Identify unifying features that will appear on each page associated with the site -- logos, buttons, text, etc. Remember you have no control over how people might enter a Web site. Therefore, define mechanisms that will make it easy for anyone to know where they are and how they can get to other parts of the site. Some methods to use are:

1. A logo or seal that uniquely identifies the site.

2. Home buttons that take users back to the library home page, the institution's home page, or both.

3. Previous and next buttons which move the user to the previous or next pages within that part of your site. (The backward and forward buttons associated with the browsers don't achieve this function.)

4. Other buttons that immediately connect to other valuable parts of the site, like a button for the on-line catalog.

5. A contact person with responsibility for the site.

6. A copyright statement.

Graphics can be used to make Web pages attractive and useful, but if carelessly used, graphics will work to the detriment of a Web site. When adding graphics to Web pages consider the following:

1. The larger and more complex the graphic, the longer it will take to download and the likelihood of user frustration increases. Consider using a major graphic only on the home page and a thumbnail graphic or smaller variation of the graphic on other pages.

2. Banners with a width of 472 pixels or less can usually be completely displayed by most browsers without readjusting the screen size.

3. A totally graphic-based site will be useless for text-only browsers unless you provide a "text-only" option.

4. Pages filled with many graphics, randomly arranged, are not only time-consuming to display, but appear cluttered and difficult to navigate.

5. At this time, a GIF graphic is more "browser friendly". All browsers with graphical interfaces should be able to display GIF files incorporated with the page. Some browsers can now display JPEG files, incorporated as part of the page, if a browser can't display an image as part of the page, it will attempt to launch the image using the appropriate software, and the image will display separately from the Web page.

Not all browsers are alike. Often, in defining the primary audience, you can identify a common Web browser, and while designing, you can focus on HTML features that your primary audience will be able to see. However, you should make an attempt to examine your pages from different browsers. Have colleagues with different browsers, located at other institutions, look at your Web pages before you go "live". Your first responsibility is to your primary audience, but unless access to your Web site is completely blocked to outsiders, checking your pages from other browsers will allow you to develop "browser friendly" pages -- pages that are attractive and readable regardless of the browser.

Last, a brief word about HTML, Hyper Text Mark-up Language. Almost anyone should be able to work with basic HTML with little or no difficulty. Standard word processing software is all that is required to create HTML documents which are saved as text only. Web browsers interpret "tags" which are usually enclosed in angle brackets (<>). For example, to center text, the tag <Center> appears before the text and the tag </Center> appears after the text. There are a number of publications (several are listed below) which can help you become familiar with HTML. However, once familiar with HTML, you may find it tedious to create web pages. Listed below are some tips, which will reduce the tedium and save time:

1. Use an HTML editor. There are a number of shareware programs for Macintosh and Windows environments which make it much easier to create HTML documents --

   http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/World_Wide_Web/HTML_Editors/

   With these programs, after deciding how specific text is to be displayed, you select the text and a click of the mouse button is often all that is needed to insert the appropriate tags into the document for a particular action.

2. Copy the source file from sites with pages that closely represent the style you want, and modify the file to meet your needs.

3. Create an HTML template which represents the information which is to be contained on each Web page. Each time a new page is created, start with a copy of the template to ensure that uniformity is maintained.

4. Create a "style sheet" which specifies when to use: specific heading sizes, font sizes and styles, typewriter text, bold text, italicized text, etc. Especially when several people are working on the Web site, this style sheet helps maintain uniformity among the pages.

   Last but not least, when your site is ready for the world, be sure to request that it be added to the Yahoo list of library sites so that people from throughout the world will explore it.

For More Information--

December, John and Neil Randall. The World Wide Web Unleashed. Indianapolis, IN: SAMS Publishing, 1995.

Lemay, Laura. Teach Yourself Web Publishing With HTML. Indianapolis, IN: SAMS Publishing, 1995.

Lynch, Patrick J. "Publishing on the World Wide Web: Organization and Design". Syllabus, 8 (June 1995):24-25.

Lynch, Patrick J. Yale C/AIM WWW Style Manual http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/StyleManual_Top.HTML

Powell, James. Spinning the World-Wide Web: An HTML Primer. Database, 18 (February/March 1995):54-59.

HTML Editors

http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/World_Wide_Web/HTML_Editors/

HTML Guides and Tutorials

http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/World_Wide_Web/HTML/Guides_and_Tutorials/

HTML Validation Checkers (These will check for errors in HTML code.)

http://www.hal.com/~markg/WebTechs/validation-form.html

[Editor's note: This URL moved to : http://www.halsoft.com/html-val-svc/]

http://www.unipress.com/weblint/
Library Web Pages

http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries/

As always, send questions and comments to:

E-Mail:

INTERNET: petersonb@baylor.edu

Tech Talk				
 
Billie Peterson
Moody Memorial Library	
P.O. Box 97143
Waco TX 76798-7143			
Phone:		Voice: (817) 755-2344
FAX: (817) 752-5332