Web Site Design Issues

ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/mac/info-mac/cfg/marks-cron-120.hqx

What's New?

Most Web sites are not static, they are constantly evolving. A "What's New?" list can be very effective to keep your regular users up to date on what has changed. Another technique is to place a small "new" graphic next to items that have recently been updated or added to your site.

HTML Validation

No matter what technique you use to generate HTML it is a good idea to periodically check your code with a validation service or "lint" program.

Webtechs provides an excellent service that allows you choose the dialect of the HTML you are interested in. You can check individual fragments of HTML by pasting them into an online form and submitting them one at a time. Or, you can submit a list of URLs and the program will retrieve the pages for you and check altogether. Web browsers, such as Netscape, tend to be very forgiving, so it is not safe to assume that you have written valid HTML based on its appearance in your browser. As World Wide Web technologies progress, it is likely that poorly written HTML will come back to haunt you.

ftp://sparc.clearink.com/pub/mac/macweblint/ (Mac Web Lint)
http://www.khoral.com/staff/neilb/weblint.html (Web Lint)
http://www.webtechs.com/html-val-svc/

Statistics

Most World Wide Web servers provide copious amounts of information in the form of log files. Each log entry documents one server request or "hit." The log files themselves provide useful information about specific episodes, however, it is impossible to see the big picture without doing further analysis. There are several log files analysis programs available, some of which are free. The program called Analog is available for multiple operating systems, produces detailed results, including bar graphs, and is extremely fast. The program formats results in HTML so they can be viewed from anywhere on the Web.

http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/analog/

Expired Links

Because the Web is constantly evolving hypertext links tend to go "stale" quickly. It is important for a Web site administrator to periodically and systematically check for links that have gone bad. With a smaller site this can be done by hand. Larger sites may require specialized URL checking software which is beginning to become available.

The flip side of this problem occurs when you need to change the hierarchical layout of your site. Not only do you need to update all your internal links, but you will need to handle external links that now point to nonexistent locations. Several techniques should be used in combination including:

• Placing a "this resource has moved..." page at the old location to redirect users.
• Some Web servers allow automatic redirection of nonexistent URLs to the new location.
• Be sure you have a meaningful generic error page which will be displayed to users when they request a nonexistent URL. This page should minimally contain a link back to the main page for your site. The email address of the contact person is also a good idea.
• A few of the Web search services, such as Alta Vista and Web Crawler provide a way to backtrack links to your site. In Alta Vista, for example, by adding the prefix "link:" to a URL will generate a list of all pages with links to that URL. It is appropriate for you to contact the site administrators and request that they update their links to your site.

Directory Structure

As you begin to set up your site, keep the following issues in mind with regard to the directory structure:

• When naming directories, use short but meaningful names and avoid mixed case.
• Structure the directory hierarchy so that the resulting URLs "read" from left to right. For example, "/year 1/bcs/comm/" is easy to remember as the directory for communications materials related to the first year Basic Clinical Skills (bcs) course.
• Provide a default page for most directories. These pages are usually named "index.html" or "default.html" and are automatically served when a request is made for the directory itself. This will simplify URLs significantly and ensure that users always get the correct entry point for your materials. (One caveat is that you should always use the full URL including the file name if you intend to move your materials to CD-ROM.)