Developing Sites and Pages 27
Understanding site structure and navigation
Unlike a printed publication, a website doesn't depend on a linear page
sequence. When designing a site, it makes more sense to think of the site in
spatial terms, with a structure like that of a museum which people will explore.
You can generally assume that your visitors will come in through the "front
door" (the Home page)—but where they go after that depends on the links
you've provided. These navigation pathways are like corridors that connect the
various rooms of the museum. It's up to you as the "architect" to develop a
sensible arrangement of pages and links so that visitors can find their way
around easily, without getting lost.
In WebPlus, you can use the Site Structure tree to visually map out the
structure of your site and then add navigation bars—that dynamically adapt to
the structure you've defined.
Site structure
Unlike the museum in our analogy, the "structure" of a website has nothing to do
with its physical layout, or where pages are stored. Rather, it's a way of logically
arranging the content on the site so that visitors have an easier time navigating
through it. One of the most useful organizing principles—which WebPlus
strongly reinforces—is an "inverted tree" structure that starts with the Home
page and then branches out to other pages. To the visitor navigating your site,
this arrangement presents your content in a familiar, hierarchical way, structured
into sections and levels.
• A section is a content category, for example "Who's Who?,"
"Products," or "Links." The various major sections are typically listed
on the site's Home page in a navigation bar. Ideally, each page on the
site belongs to a particular section. And unless there's only one page in
a given section, the section will have its own main page, which usually
serves as a menu for subsidiary pages.
• The level is the number of steps (i.e., jumps) a given page is removed
from the Home page. The Home page will always reside at Level 1,
normally along with main section menu pages. This allows navigation
bars to work easily and automatically. Pages one step "below" the
section menu pages reside at Level 2, and so on.
