|
|
We hate to pigeonhole communications, but there seems to be a trend among WWW design that lends itself to categorization. We can break many pages and systems into three categories:
As you've surfed the WWW, you've probably seen pages and systems that fit into the above categories. You've probably seen systems that give way too much information on a product (and do so in a dry, technical manner), systems that are all bells and
whistles with no content, and systems whose only focus is on getting you to order the product right now.
Our focus in designing commercial sites is to combine these three types of systems into one, and thus create a complete marketing tool. As we have already said, marketing is a combination of things that lead to commercial advancement, and not a single
entity. What we are seeking is a balance of information, entertainment, and sales communications that will provide a complete communications package.
To put things into perspective, we'll tell a story about the three little business people. The first was an informer. When she was asked to send a client information about a product, she would gather everything she could get her hands on, bind it all
together in one big book, and send it to the client saying that everything they could possibly want to know is in there.
The second person was strictly an entertainer. He would go to a client's office, tell jokes, show interesting slides, do magic tricks, and so on.
The third person was strictly focused on getting the client to order. She would walk into the client's office with a contract in one hand and a pen in the other.
Separately, these three people did very poorly. They would either confuse, distract, or irritate the clients. Together, however, they were unstoppable. They were able to engage the clients, provide him or her with the information they needed, and close
the deal.
Your pages should keep the same balance. You want to provide enough information for your potential clients to make an informed decision (and to support them after the purchase), you want to provide this information in an engaging manner, and you want
to make the sale. By balancing this carefully, you will make your system appealing to the broadest audience.
So, how do you go about making a system that provides all three elements in perfect balance? The key is in organization, both at the page and system levels. To may make the site appealing to the broadest audience, you will need to design your work so
that it provides effective communications to several different types of people (shoppers looking for a quick overview, people wanting in-depth detail, and so on). We'll start with the basics.
These items should appear on every commercial WWW document:
Figure 8.1. The basic items in a commercial Web document.
Your company name and logo should appear on each page, so that it is clear to everyone, regardless of how they entered the system, who owns it. This also ties the Web system into any printed collateral.
Providing a link to information on contacting the company, or a company e-mail address, is crucial. Remember, this is two-way communication we're dealing with here. If the viewer can't get ahold of someone for ordering, further information, and so on,
the system doesn't serve much of a purpose other than letting people know the company exists somewhere.
Many of these elements can be addressed in different ways. The company name and logo can be a graphic on each page, a banner in a frames system, or something else. You should address all of these items in some way, but the exact way you do it is your choice.
The page title should exist on two levels: first, it should be included within the HTML <TITLE> tags, so that a browser will display it outside of the page (usually on the browser's top border). Second, the title of the page should appear clearly
within the body of the page, so that it can be viewed within the first screen (without scrolling) on a 640x480 pixel monitor.
The author or contact person, often called the webmaster, should present an e-mail address, and a link to his/her e-mail, on every page if possible. This enables people to report problems with your pages. This sometimes becomes a nuisance, as there are
people out there with way too much time on their hands who will fill your e-mail box with annoying observations. On high-traffic sites, you may want to drop the webmaster link after you're sure that most of the bugs have been worked out of the system.
A link to the system home page offers primitive navigation to people who may be unfamiliar with your other navigation tools, and it enables people to start over from the beginning. It's also useful if someone is accessing your system from anywhere
other than the home page.
Press releases, technical updates, and other time-sensitive materials can include the date of creation and/or latest revision. If this is not something you want to make public (and there's really no reason to), you can include it in the code as a
comment tag, or you can encode the date, revision and any other information on the bottom of the page (as in 080896r4).
Copyright law states that you needn't claim a document as having a copyright for it to be valid and legally yours, but it will help if you are ripped-off and need to take it to court. Your statement of copyright should look something like this:
Copyright 1996, Hampton and Associates, All Rights Reserved.
Hypertext link(s) to other related local pages should be included for obvious reasons, but how and how many are a matter of style and application. For instance, don't link out in the middle of a paragraph if you want that paragraph to be read; instead,
add a more information link at the end of the text.
When arranging your pages, be aware that novice viewers can be easily disoriented by long, scrolling Web documents. They seem unable to find links when they disappear off-screen as they move through very long pages. Though there are ways to keep your
novice viewers oriented, it's a good idea to limit your documents to two screens worth of information. If you must use long documents, be sure to feature navigational links at the beginning, end, and even the middle (if your document is very large) of the
Web document. A frames system helps to eliminate this problem by enabling you to keep your navigation bars on-screen while the content is scrolling (more on this in Chapter 10, "Taking Advantage of HTML").
Another disadvantage of very long Web documents is that the viewer must rely on the vertical scroll bar to navigate through the page. In many graphic interfaces the scroll bar slider is a fixed size and gives the viewer no real indication of the length
of the document relative to what is currently visible on the screen, so users have no idea how long your Web document is, or when they will reach the end of it. In extremely long Web pages, very small movements of the scroll bar can completely change the
contents of the screen, leaving the viewer no familiar landmarks on screen (where am I?). This forces the viewer to creep slowly downward with the scroll bar arrows (often line-by-line), or risk missing sections of the page.
All this would seem a good argument for always limiting your Web documents to two page lengths, but of course, as with all rules, there are exceptions. For instance, it makes sense to keep very closely related information within the confines of a
single Web document, especially when you are providing information which you anticipate the viewer will want to print or save to text. By keeping the content within one document, you make printing and saving much easier. When designing long Web documents
such as these, always provide internal links within the document. The best way to do this is to arrange your Web document like a book, with the information split into separate sections (chapters). You can then make a table of contents at the beginning and
end of the document so viewers can jump to a particular section without having to scan through the whole page. (Figure 8.2 shows a good example of this.)
Figure 8.2. A navigational table of contents.
Page length tips:
The cardinal rule of design: Your design should enhance and not detract from the information you are trying to provide. This sounds like kid's stuff, but if you take a look at many of the sites on the Web today, you will see that a great number of them
break this very simple rule. But not you.
The goal in designing for the WWW is to communicate your point. How do you do this? By getting and keeping your customers' attention.
The purpose of commercial art is to help communicate an idea. A graphic may be beautiful, striking, and appealing in and of itself, but if it doesn't assist in communicating the message, it has no place on the document.
Good Web design, just as good graphic design, always seeks the perfect balance between visual impact and the graphical and textual information you are providing. Without the visual impact of contrast, shape, and color, Web documents will be graphically
uninteresting and may not inspire the viewer to investigate their contents. In addition, pages filled with solid text, ignoring the visual contrast and optical relief offered by graphics and a well-structured page layout, are more difficult to read.
Nonetheless, without the content of the text, highly graphical pages run the risk of disappointing the viewer by offering a poor balance between visual sensation, textual content, and hypertext links, as well as providing little reward for the time spent
downloading the graphics. So, your goal is to find this ideal balance, within the graphical constraints of the HTML language, and the bandwidth limitations of the average viewer.
The six basic elements of good Web design, as we see them, are
Simplicity is the most important principle of Web design; after all the WWW is supposed to make things easier and information more accessible to the public. While viewers are entertained by high-end graphics and kick-butt bells and whistles, they will
only come back if your content is easily accessible and worthy of their time.
Viewers generally won't struggle too hard to get to your content, and if they do it makes them angry and frustrated and turns them off of your site. So your Web design has to be not only interesting, attractive, and informative, but simple and
efficient as well.
Each element in Web design (graphics, type, white space) has its own optical weight. In print work we call this their ink density. Graphics are weighty when compared to a block of type, which is relatively light. So, in attempting to achieve visual
balance, keep in mind it takes a lot of type to balance even a small graphic.
Visual balance must be assessed top to bottom, as well as left to right. The left to right part can be really tricky considering you never know how wide your page will be when viewed (the center point is unknown). Therefore, you should take full
advantage of HTML alignment tags (<CENTER>, <…ALIGN=RIGHT>, and so on), for text as well as images whenever possible (much more on this in Chapter 10). For example, say you have an informational page with lots of
text aligned to the left (default); to achieve visual balance you will need to add some weight on the right. You could do this in many ways—for example, by placing the majority of your graphics on the right, or by using graphics with brighter or
bolder colors on the right.
To achieve top-to-bottom balance, each Web document should have a header and footer section; this creates visual bookends for your page. These should contain some similar elements (at the very least, keep your header and footer in the same color
scheme). This is not to say that you should add unnecessary graphics at the end of your pages, but you should provide a good bookend, even if it is just a horizontal line with your copyright information.
Also, never underestimate the value of white (blank) space. Many inexperienced designers feel a need to fill every pixel with information, and this simply isn't the best way to communicate. Refine your pages to the point that the messages are concise,
and use design elements that break the information up into manageable chunks.
For some reason the human eye tends to favor particular horizontal:vertical relationships in the sizes of elements. A proportion of about .6 to 1 (roughly twice as long as high, or vice versa) is the most pleasing to the eye, while perfect squares are
less pleasing. It is easy to do this with your individual graphics, but it is much more difficult to implement in your Web page (since there are so many variables in how someone will be viewing your site). Nonetheless, be aware of the proportions of your
page elements: graphic dimensions, blocks of text, white-space area, and so on.
Contrast is a very important part of Web design, as it is in all other design. Contrast is easy to explain; if you shout all the time, people will stop listening, but if you whisper and all of a sudden shout at the top of your lungs, you'll be sure to
get people's attention.
An example of how this works in Web design comes from some novice HTML programmers. Because heading tags are the easiest to learn, novices often begin designing Web documents by making nearly all the text a heading, as if for some reason they think the
bigger the better (we wish we could show you how awful this looks in a real example, but we can't very well ask people if we could use their page as an example of bad design). The result of this is the whole document looks as if it is shouting, nothing
stands out, and the viewer becomes disinterested and tunes out. Another common mistake is to load every document with dense text, ignoring the important inclusion of white space (empty space on your page); this causes viewers to see a wall of gray and
their brains instinctively reject the lack of visual contrast. Yet another common mistake is to ignore the contrast between the background color (or image) and the text. If you have ever tried to read yellow type on a white background you'll know exactly
what we mean. So remember, your type must stand out very clearly from its background to be read easily.
Good Web typography depends on the contrast between one font and another, as well as the contrast between blocks of text and the surrounding white space. Web pages with lots of dense type, small or no headlines, and low-contrast graphics tend to look
dull and lifeless on a Web page. Strong visual contrast and unique patterns attract the viewers' attention and makes/keeps them interested.
Use heading tags very sparingly, in other words, only if you want to really emphasize the text (less is more). Otherwise use bold, italics, or font size to contrast segments of type you consider important details. In other words, your can use contrast
of your fonts to portray what you want the viewer to see as important, in addition to adding visual interest.
A good typographer's rule is to use only one type of font treatment at a time. For instance, either italicize or bold a word, but avoid doing both if at all possible (sometimes you may need to do this in a caption).
Keep visual contrast in mind for your entire document. Remember: People see contrast and pattern before they notice anything else, so edit your design just as tightly as you edit your copy. Take the time to erase the unnecessary and accentuate the
essential.
Viewers tend to quickly scan and then read, making many passes through information, not just one. Their first scan looks at the overall shape and patterns, while further scans begin to examine the content more deeply.
A good Web page design leads the viewer to the starting point, and then distinctly through the page in the best order for maximal understanding. Keep in mind that viewers see big, colorful, or bright elements of the page first, and then follow the
normal left-to-right and top-to-bottom pattern.
Your Web site should be harmonious, in other words, your individual Web pages should look as if they belong together. You can do this by making your individual elements (graphics, type, white space) sized, colored, placed, and used the same way on each
page on your site. You should also employ the same overall structure for each document on your site.
This consistency helps guide viewers through your information and gives them a sense of where they are on the Web (they know they are on your site and haven't jumped to New Guinea accidentally). There is also an issue of the harmony between the
graphics and the text. Try to match the art to the copy, and vice versa. The purpose for both is to send a message (more on this in Chapter 12, "Working with Graphics").
The first step in mocking up your Web site is to establish the basic layout map for your pages. Do this by gathering representative samples of your text (if you have any; if not, just guesstimate your average text length with nonsense text, often
called "greeking"), along with your logo art and any additional graphics you will be using (if you have none, estimate the average size of your graphics). Think of each of these elements of your page as blocks—your goal is to arrange these
blocks in the way that is most pleasing to the viewer. Experiment with various arrangements. We do this on a white board with tape on the back of our blocks so we can rearrange them, but you can use any method you like. You are trying to arrange a basic
map that will apply to your entire Web site. Of course some pages are larger than others, or require more graphics, but the basic placement of your blocks should stay consistent throughout your site.
Determine where the graphics and text blocks will be placed on your documents, and decide upon the position and font style (size, treatment, and color) for page titles, subtitles, and navigation links. Once you've done this, you'll have a starting
point for each of your pages.
Consistency and predictability are essential characteristics of any well-designed Web site. They are key elements in helping users in identifying the origin of Web documents, providing predictable access to the interactive elements of the site, and
giving the viewer a harmonious graphic design scheme as they move about your system.
The amazing capabilities of the WWW and other highly graphical, interactive media (such as multimedia presentations) have led many "information experts" to completely reject print standards as a guideline in designing Web systems. As we've
said earlier, you should not limit yourself to traditional media constraints in designing for the WWW, but we heartily disagree with anyone who believes they can chuck out thousands of years of communication refinement just because something is new and
unfettered.
The fact of the matter is, you are trying to communicate something. To do this, you have to speak in the language of your intended recipient. Hypermedia and interactive design are, without a doubt, much more powerful than simple text in presenting
information. However, your audience is far more used to getting information from print than in any other form except the spoken word (which includes television and radio), and several lifetimes of experience have gone into refining this medium.
There's a personal information system that takes handwritten input, stores it indefinitely without the need for external power, retrieves the information instantly, and fits in your pocket. It's called a piece of paper.
It is part of your job to educate your readers in the use of hypermedia, and to do this, you must reference their existing knowledge of information technology (which will vary from audience to audience, and reader to reader). If you completely
disregard communications standards, your chances of confusing and thereby losing a viewer increase exponentially. This is certainly not to say that you shouldn't make use of the capabilities of the WWW, but that you should understand that many of your
viewers will be novices to the medium, and that you will need to take this into account in designing your pages.
The biggest problem in hypermedia is that the sheer complexity of the links and navigation are extremely difficult to put into a conceptual model. As you've seen, we like to diagram our page structure as hierarchical (with different levels and
sublevels). The truth is, however, a diagram that truly reflects all of the possible links and paths through even a simple WWW system looks incredibly complex and often is impossible to diagram in two dimensions. What we are dealing with is perception.
We design our systems in hierarchical diagrams because we need to work with something that both our clients and ourselves can understand. This is very important, obviously, but there's more. We also need to view things from the Web site visitor's
perspective, and if we have a hard time conceptualizing a Web system's structure, we can be pretty sure that it will be more difficult for the viewer.
You want your viewer to perceive your system as being straightforward and simple, regardless of how complex it really is. This is a double-edged sword in that you want your viewers to have the idea that they are working their way through your system
and information in an orderly fashion, but you don't want to limit them to a structure where they may be missing key points of the message.
This is, perhaps, your most difficult task in designing a system, in that you want your viewer to perceive their trip through your system as being a linear progression from one page to the next, when the fact is that they are bouncing all over the
place as they move from page to page to page.
The best way to accomplish this is to provide clear navigation throughout your page systems and to have at least a "HOME" link on each page (never, never leave a viewer at a dead end, where they will have to work their way back through your
system in order to go ahead). If possible, provide navigation on each page that includes the key elements and areas of your message—even if this means that the viewer will have the ability to jump around without viewing each section in its entirety.
It's better for someone to get a partial view of the overall message than to get a full view of the partial message, and then leave thinking they've seen it all.
The use of headers, either textual, graphical or (best) both, tell your viewers where they are within your system. The best way to do this is often to go back to the hierarchical model and label the page by set and subset. For instance, if a viewer is
reading about a certain product, you might represent this textually on a page by using headings such as
Any or all of these headings can be graphical, as in the illustration in Figure 8.3, where the heading can also be a navigation link.
Figure 8.3. A graphical heading.
It would be nice to use "previous page" and "next page" navigation in order to preserve your viewer's simple, linear navigation concept, but it really doesn't lend itself well to the power of the WWW. This type of navigation should
only be used when there is one and only one way to go through the system, or when the linear navigation is relevant to a prechosen path through the system (as in a guided tour). In the latter case, the forward and back navigation should be an option, not
the primary from of navigation (think of it as a bonehead way through your system). If you do choose to provide "back" and "next" links, always tell the viewers where they will be going if they choose the link (for example, "back
to customer service," and "next: ordering").
There has recently been a move toward providing a large, linked graphic or raw HTML page that shows your system in a map form (see Figure.8.4). Again, the format is usually hierarchical (either a tree, or a series of concentric circles). It's not a bad
idea to provide this off of your home page, or as an alternate navigational system listed within a header or footer, but it really shouldn't be relied upon as the primary form of navigation.
Figure 8.4. An online site map.
Here are some problems with relying on a site map:
Alternately, here are some strong points for providing a site map within your system:
Overall, we feel that site maps are often used as an easy way out of carefully planning site navigation. They are best used for sites that deal strictly with technical information and documentation, rather than those designed for overall marketing. In
the case of a site that presents both a marketing section and technical documentation, you may opt to provide a map that only lists the pages you would wish a viewer to access directly. If you do this, you should make it clear that the site map is only a
list of key areas, and not a complete page structure diagram.
Following are some key tips for designing navigational tools. These will help make navigation simpler for the viewer, and will also help you approach the broadest audience.
Because we're in "Advertising," friends and family often want to tell us about some great TV commercial they've recently seen. It usually goes like this:
THEM: "Hey, have you seen that beer commercial, where the guy walks into a bar, and everyone in the bar is a goat, and then the guy has a beer, and all the goats turn into beautiful women in bikinis?"
US: "Uh, no. I haven't seen that one, what beer is it advertising?"
THEM: "I dunno, but that's a great commercial!"
Well, it might be a funny commercial; it might be a cool or entertaining commercial, but it obviously isn't a great commercial. If it were a good commercial, they'd have remembered the name of the beer, and if it were a great
commercial, they'd have been drinking one when they told us about it.
In Web design, it's easy to get caught up in the latest technology—providing cool graphics, bells and whistles, and all of the nifty things that the WWW allows—but you've got to remember your focus. You've got to prioritize what it is you
want to accomplish, and not just try to be cool.
There is certainly a place for cool. Ultimately, everything on your site should be cool—even the way you present uncool things. But you should use the cool factor only as far as it assists in the effectiveness of presenting your message, not as an
end in itself. The coolest thing is accomplishing your objective.
Cool is especially useful if you have little to say. For instance, you'll notice that many of the most entertaining beer commercials you see are from brands that vary little from their competition. Their beer tastes pretty much like the next, so they focus on something that has absolutely nothing to do with which beer you buy—like bikini-clad goats.
So where does this leave you? What's cool and what's not? Well, we can't hope to address every option you have in WWW design, and many are addressed in detail within their respective chapters, but we can talk about a few right now.
Obviously this is key. You not only want to present quality information—answering the questions your viewers may have—but you want to do so in a way that gives you some control over the communication. This is especially the case when you are
marketing a product or service.
Unless you are trying to sell something relatively inexpensive, your potential customers will probably be better serviced by a salesperson than any kind of multimedia presentation. In this case, the Web site acts as the first (or one of the first)
steps in the selling process. What you are trying to accomplish is to get someone on the phone, with the true interactivity only allowed by speaking with another human being. Therefore, you're not going to want to do more than pique your viewer's
curiosity, or overcome what you anticipate might be their initial objections.
We've probably spent enough time talking about organization, but that won't stop us from stressing the point yet again. Organization is perceived as being the fundamental aspect to good design—as many companies have found out. Great graphics,
well-balanced pages, and even quality content don't impress people if they can't find what they're looking for.
Your navigation doesn't need to be clearly defined text links, nor does it have to be a series of shadow buttons, but it does have to give the viewer the impression that they have a complete tool for getting around your site.
We've both made pages that have purposefully unmarked navigation tools—buttons that have only an icon, for example{md]and we've gotten some powerful responses, both pro and con. Surprisingly, many of the responses that were against our use of
cryptic navigation were the most heartening. Here's a typical letter we might receive:
I'm writing to tell you that I don't think your Web site is as effective as it could be.
Your navigation buttons weren't clearly marked, and I had to go through each one of them before I saw all of the information. I also felt that I had to move my cursor over every graphic to see if it might be linked to something.
I think that you should clearly label your navigation icons, so that people can jump on the site, find the information they need, and then leave.
I really do think your site is good, I just think it could be better.
Regards,
So, the viewer logged on to the system, went through every page meticulously, and then felt compelled to write a letter. Do you think this would have happened if the navigation buttons were clearly marked? It's more likely that the viewer would
have logged on, looked at a page or two, and logged off.
When we design pages like this, we do so very carefully. We wouldn't design this way for a client who has a clear-cut, buy-something-now objective. The type of business that benefits from a system such as this is one who is hoping to achieve mindshare,
not an immediate sale. The fact that viewers are willing to spend time going through each page, and even write us a letter, shows that we have achieved mindshare.
We're not saying that you should plan pages this way. In fact, we'll say that you probably shouldn't, at least not until you've had quite a bit of experience. There's a fine line between balancing enough mystery to compel people without going so far as
to truly confuse them.
When we design a system like this, we always make sure it's clear that there is navigation (that the buttons are buttons, and not just graphics, and that they are the same size and in the same location), and we check the statistics regularly, to make
sure that people are hitting the content pages, and not just leaving after the opening page. We never use cryptic ISMAPS (like a street scene where you click on different people, buildings, or objects) because we've found that ISMAPS are already confusing
to some people, and they're useless if the areas aren't defined.
The reason we're bringing this up at all is that you should know there is more than one way to go about planning your navigation, and that completely "clear" navigation isn't always the best route to take.
There are sites on the WWW with tons and tons of icons, horizontal rules (bars), background graphics, and banners. There are also backgrounds, clip art, and effects packaged with many software packages. These things can really speed up the process of
getting a page published, and you're really going to hate that we're telling you not to use them, but we are sorry.
In a case where you need to get a page up fast, you might want to use something as a temporary placeholder (like bullets you plan on replacing), but it's best to avoid this completely if at all possible. Graphics shape your system's look and feel, and
using cookie-cutter graphics will give you a cookie-cutter effect. There's also the fact that you have no ownership over the graphics, and people might see them all over the Net—which will not help you set yourself apart.
Make sure that your graphics are designed for your page, and that all of the text content is original. You should also, where possible, identify your graphics. Design them so that they work within your page, but not elsewhere—you can do this by
working in a logo or company name, or by balancing two or more graphics so that they work together, but not separately. This helps to keep snooping surfers from grabbing your graphics for their own use (which happens all the time).
Many sites overuse graphics. This is often caused by graphic artists who are used to print media (and don't understand the bandwidth issue), but is more often attributable to bad design. A few well-placed graphics will spice up a page, while too many
(or too large) will bog it down.
We try to use JPEGs when possible (if we don't have to worry about transparent backgrounds), and we use graphics sparingly, employing some special tricks to add color and depth (see Chapter 12). JPEGs offer high (16 million)
color, small size, and fast loading. On the other hand, some old browsers won't read them. These types of browsers are pretty much dinosaurs, and you can almost discount the people who would use them as being poor prospects anyway. (If they don't have the
time to download an up-to-date browser, or the money to update their system or dial-up account, they're probably not great consumers.)
With GIFs, we try to stick to the rule of 51, which is a way of dither-proofing your art (more on this in Chapter 12). GIFs are always 256 or fewer colors.
Here's a rule we break all the time: state the size of your graphic within the image tag. We break this rule because we often want to be able to update graphics without updating the HTML of the page that contains them. But, don't do as we do, do as we
say, and state the size:
<IMG SRC="graphic.jpg" HEIGHT=80 WIDTH=300>
This enables browsers to place the text on the page before adding the graphics, so that your viewers can start reading before the graphics are loaded. Otherwise, the browser won't show the text until it has begun to decode the graphic elements (so that
it knows how and where to place the text).
A high degree of interactivity (extensive use of CGI, server push/client pull, and so on) engages the user and makes your site memorable. The WWW is an interactive communications medium, and your site should reflect the potential of that medium. By
allowing viewers to interact you can also get valuable feedback on how to make your site more appealing.
There is, of course, a drawback to a highly interactive site, that being the issue of bandwidth. The Net can be like viewing the world through a drinking straw. A 14.4Kbps modem (which you will probably have to accept as the lowest common denominator
for at least a while) will take a very long time to load even moderately graphical pages. Add to this the fact that there is often a taxed server on the other end, and gridlock within the Net itself, and the concept of high-interactivity, with its constant
back and forth communications, loses much of its appeal.
So, as with all things, you want to find an acceptable compromise. Use interactivity sparingly, and rely on some other things for animation and the like (such as GIF animations). Every link is interactive—it's the viewer saying "I want
this," and the system responding by providing whatever "this" is. Other interactivity, like Shockwave or Lingo applications, are rarely worth the download time and are usually pretty slipshod.
Java applets (little applications, like cigarettes are little cigars) are, in our opinion, rarely a good option. While we agree that they will someday increase the horsepower of the WWW, most current applications are pretty barbaric. "Oooh, look!
There's a little message scrolling across the screen! Over and over and over again! And a little calculator! It works about as well as the one on my old Commadore 64!" Suffice it to say that Java should be used to accentuate your system, with
searching capabilities and the like, and not for its limited abilities as a gee-whiz toy.
Some large companies are providing viewers with custom Web sites. These sites are dynamically created to meet the needs of each individual viewer and to direct advertising to their personal demographic profile. There's no way that it's within the scope
of this book to describe how this is done, as it requires some very heavy programming.
There are test sites on the WWW now using this system and good results are being reported (albeit with bugs galore, and slow downloads). Some people say that this is the future of the Web—but some people say that about everything.
We had to include this because of our feelings. We see many pages and sites that make poor use of CGI, HTML, Java and the like, for no apparent purpose except that it's possible. Good examples are the <BLINK> tag, overuse of headings (we're
mentioning this again because it's very prevalent), and page counters.
We'll just come out and say it: Page counters are stupid. What could anyone possibly hope to accomplish by telling people they're the 27,343rd person to view a page? Who started this whole thing? You wouldn't tell everyone how many brochures you sent
out last year, or how many phone calls you've had ( "Hello, this is ACME Inc., you are our 132rd caller this week!"), so why would you want to publish it on the WWW?
We're mentioning features like this in the hopes that we will overcome any ideas you may have that such elements are part of a good Web site. Even though you may run into these things all the time (even on the pages of very large companies), don't
think that they're in some way cool or expected.
In this chapter, we've kept you from getting your hands dirty by dealing with the issues of making a site both effective and appealing, as well as issues of style and common sense. By now, you're probably champing at the bit to get into the actual HTML
design of your page—it won't be long now.
The next chapter briefly beats the concepts of organization even deeper into your skull and will help to get you organized before you dive into HTML.
