The primary content should
occupy the bulk of the page, and be
the most prominent thing on the page.
This should be obvious, but there are
way too many high profile news sites
where the news item or story is in a
small font in the middle third of the
page, with navigation and other items
occupying 60 or 70 percent of the screen
space.
The most prominent heading
on the page should identify the primary
content on the page, so users can determine
at once if it is what they are looking
for.
Specifics and Examples:
With documents, the text/images
are the primary content. With "index"
pages, the links are the primary content.
The primary content should
never be in a small font. I strongly
recommend that you don't set the font
size on any extended blocks of text
- you have no idea what the user's eyesight,
monitor, or lighting are are like, so
you should not try to second-guess their
configured defaults.
The primary heading should
always be an <H1>, even if it
is an image (for search engines, other
automated systems, and users with voice
synthesis interfaces). If the primary
"heading" is an image, it
must not look anything like a banner
ad.
Don't use animated gifs
or moving special effects (unless they
are the primary content on the page):
they make it hard to focus on other
page elements.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Context
Who created the content and who put
it on the web? In a world where nearly
anyone can publish professional looking
material, it's impossible to tell from
general appearance alone how credible
information is, or how trustworthy a
service is. So it is important that
every page contain information about
who created and published it, or a link
to such information.
How does the page fit
into the rest of the site (or site section)?
Unless the page is completely independent,
it will usually connect with other pages
on the site. It is important to show
these connections, both to help provide
context and to provide navigation. This
does not mean a massive array of links
to everything else on the site - it
means connecting each page with related
pages and with the larger sections into
which it fits.
Every page should be self-explanatory.
The headings and the contextual information
together should provide adequate background
information to someone who has seen
no other pages on your site. Search
engines will dump people straight to
deep pages. (NB: this is separate to
ensuring that every page has a good
TITLE.)
Specifics and Examples:
An organisation (or company
or individual) logo or name is the obvious
way to provide information about the
publisher.
Avoid "cute"
page headings. Catchy headlines that
don't describe the article may work
ok in newspapers, but they are lousy
on the web.
Put a date on every page
with substantial content.
I'm fond of hierarchical
menus like the ones at the top and bottom
of this page, showing the "nesting"
of content on the site. These provide
navigation and context together, handle
the addition of new pages easily, and
scale to large sites.
