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Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics
Although you can overuse text bites, they’re very important in Web-page
design. Text bites help you convey as much information as possible in the
limited amount of time users spend looking at each Web page. And they help
you balance the basic elements of Web page design: text, links, and graphics.
If you want to put long documents on the Web, consider rewriting them as
a series of text bites. If rewriting them is too much work to be practical, at
least create short, punchy text for navigation and for introductory paragraphs
to the long documents. Within a long document, add headers to break up
the flow of text and provide pointers on your Web site to key areas within the
document. Without such guidance, users may well give up in frustration
without reaching the information they’re looking for.
Look at sites you like
Look at sites you like and at sites whose purposes are similar to your own.
What’s good about them? What’s not? Imitate successful elements — without
copying, which would be a violation of ethics as well as copyright laws — and
avoid unsuccessful models. As the development of your site progresses, keep
checking it against the sites you previously identified and widen your search
to get additional ideas — what not to do as well as what to do.
Few original ideas exist on the Web, so it’s no big deal if your initial site
contains one or two new ideas at best. The rest of your site may echo things
readers have already seen, and you’re still better off if your site brings to
mind other good sites, rather than bad ones. (But be careful: If you start
yelling “Bad site! Bad site!” at your computer screen and swatting it with
a rolled-up newspaper, you may not have a working Internet connection
much longer.)
Plan for ongoing improvements
As you plan and implement your initial Web page, you will, no doubt, find
yourself creating a “To Do” list of things that you can’t fit into the original site
but want to add later, when time allows. (Creating this list for later use is
great protection against trying to create a supersite right off the bat, getting
stuck in the creation process, and never getting to a point where you can
actually publish your first Web page.) This list is the start of a plan for ongoing
improvements.
Some things you put in a Web site need to be kept current. For example, if
your business Web page shows your company’s quarterly results, be ready
to update it quickly when the next quarter’s results come out. If it lists
company officers, update it as soon as a change takes place. (Unless you’re
one of the people changed — and then it’s your successor’s problem!)
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