The first step in designing a web page is to determine what its function will be; this is the essential key to ensuring that the design will be successful. If a personal web page is being designed, for example, the designer may only want the page to have the capability to display information about himself. On the other hand, if he is designing a business page that allows customers to place orders, his page will need the functionality to accept payments, receive orders, and permit customers to contact him.
Once the pageÆs basic function is defined, the next step is to make a list of all the operations the page will need to support. Taking as an example a page that vill function as the home page for a publication, the list of functions it might support could be: displaying the publicationÆs staff, address, and mission; retrieving articles from the archive; searching the archive for articles on specific topics; soliciting comments from readers; and providing for subscription sign-up. These separate functions will likely require additional web pages of their own once selected by the user, but the initial web page must have links or menu items that lead to those functions.
The next step is to group the operations. For example, the display of the publicationÆs address, telephone number, and fax number can be grouped as contact information. Grouping enables the page designer to put like things together, making the page more logical and intuitive to use and keeping clutter to a minimum. At this stage of the design, the decision should be made whether to use buttons, links, or menu items for accessing the functions on this list; these are termed the ônavigationö functions. A good rule of thumb is to use buttons if there are fewer than five navigation functions on the page or to use menus if there are more than five. Underlined links are best replaced with buttons for a more professional look. A few buttons
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