Operation Manual

Web Site Design and Construction 27
If your experience with Web sites has been limited to browsing
pages—or even if you’ve cobbled together a Web site using another
authoring program—you’ll appreciate the fact that WebPlus lets you
lay out your pages using a WYSIWYG approach. Simply place
elements where you want them, and then What You See Is What You’ll
Get in the published Web site.
But creating a successful Web site is much more than arranging objects
on a page! The goal should be to combine a consistent visual layout
with a logical structure that’s easy to navigate. In this chapter, we’ll
provide a road map of the design and construction process—
emphasizing how unique WebPlus features like the Site Structure tree
and master pages enable you, as the site designer, to seamlessly
combine visual and structural elements. So don’t skip ahead... This
chapter, more than any other, will help you get a maximum return on
your investment in WebPlus!
Pre-planning
The advice in this chapter comes from some of the gurus who have set
up Web sites to disseminate their particular design credos, as well as
from first-hand experience developing user-friendly online
environments. Almost all agree that good design begins not with the
designer but with the user. Know the users; put yourself in their place.
Learn from your own experience as a consumer of online information.
When you’re starting out, it’s worthwhile trying to conceptualize your
site as if it were a more traditional form. Is it a “billboard in the sky”?
Is it basically a greeting card, a photo album? An Open Letter or
editorial? An electronic business card? People’s past experience with
print and pictures shapes their expectations for new forms, and a
familiar concept or metaphor can help to draw users into your web, as it
were.
Don’t set out to overwhelm or overdesign. The simplest site may work
best. What will succeed is the result of understanding who’s in your
audience, and what they bring to what you have to offer.