Designing for the web

Towards the end of 1990 the WWW was released

Withing CERN

Guides

Are for introducing new users to a website, like a tour or tutorial. Have sequential navigation

Site maps

Are like contents in a book

Local navigation

Are often sub-sites and can be developed and maintained seperately

Site indexes

Are similar to book indexes and compliment site maps

What are the two types of navigation?

Browser based and embedded

Personalisation

Dynamically generating web pages for different users (systems guess what users want)

Customisation

Giving users control over a combination of contents and presentations (users decide what they want)

Websites can convey these messages

Informational, Visual, Navigational

Contextual navigation

Links are specific to a page (connect to related content)

Effective webdesign needs to consider

Look and feel

Mosaic influences

Netscape navigator and Mozilla Firefox

What types of design are crucial to usability

Organisation and navigation

In 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Proposed a global hypertext project

Every web page must be

Self contatined

Global navigation

Should be present on every page. Can include home and search

Supplemental navigation mechanisms

Sitemaps, indexes, guides

In 1990 Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Started working on a programme called the WWW

In 1993

Students at NCSA developed Mosaic

In 1991

The WWW was made publicly available

Embedded Navigation can be divided into how many types?

Three (Global, local and contextual)

Web design decisions are divided into

Two categories (Visual and structural)

Navigation tools include

URL entry, back and forward buttons, history and favourites