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Herb Hollar, owner and general guru of Herbie Webdesigns, received his Master's in Mass Communications from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina. His MMC project was the creation of the CJMC web site, and his project paper explored then-current web design literature and explained principles of good web design.
The project paper may be viewed on-line. It is also available to download-- sure thing for students who need to skim a good bibliography on web design. (24k Mac Word 5.sit, 65k RTF Mac or DOS)
The following paragraphs are excerpts from the project paper commenting on the three most important factors in good, successful web design.
In web sites, information must be presented in an attractive and cohesive manner. A good content plan--deciding where to put what--achieves half of this goal. The other half depends on the use of type and graphics. Generally, graphics should be small (and easily understood if they are used for navigation) and text should be short paragraphs and lists. Navigational graphics should be consistent throughout the site so a user will be able to easily navigate all areas. The length of the pages themselves should only be as long as one or two screens, although, depending on the nature of the page, long page lengths are sometimes acceptable. Long stories usually should be broken into a series of short pages containing more specific information. Additionally, background colors and graphics should be visually recessive so that type is easy to read.
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Another principle, providing for intuitive navigation, may be reached by providing specific titles for each page denoting its contents as well as through informative graphics. A graphic may be used as a "running head" on every page in the site to remind the user what site they are in--and to tell users where they are if they land on a page in the site other than the home page. Variations of this graphic can indicate what section or sub-section the user is currently viewing. Meaningful icons and image maps also supply a quick overview of what is in the site and how to get there. Navigational icons should clearly indicate where they lead and be strategically placed at the top and bottom of each page as appropriate. Basically, navigation should be an intuitive, "successful engagement" with the site.
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The structure of a web site must also provide information in a logical and easy-to-find way. The hierarchy of information should be carefully planned before design begins, and the design should maintain the planned hierarchy. One way of doing this is to make a storyboard of the content plan and then create the pages based on the storyboard. The home page should offer a menu of the site's different content areas, rather than one long page containing everything. The user may link to pages of more specific information (saving the user from having to scroll through long screens of text), or link to a page outside of the site for more detailed auxiliary information. Long sections of text should be broken by regressive headings, and the designer should use different heading sizes consistently throughout the site. Also, because stories in web sites may be presented in non-linear form, separating long stories into a number of short pages allows a user to select what information is viewed and the sequence in which it is viewed. Graphics, especially those used for navigation, must have text equivalents for users with text-only web browsers.
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Please direct comments or inquiries to Herb Hollar at h@herbie.com. Copyright © 1997 Herbie Designs |