![[ Image ]](Gener_site.GIF)
The structure of most web sites is not very complex if you are able to visualize it on paper. Most structures are actually very logical and usually represent the basic organization of the content to be presented.
The average site consists of a main or home page which is connected to one or more other pages by a series of two-way links. Additional links to other sites or pages either on the same server or anywhere else on the web may also be included. Visuals may also be incorporated into a given page or in another linked page. the home page as well as all other pages are identified by their own, unique URL's which are designated by the author of the page. A generic web page is shown here.
Many people confuse the terms home page and web site. Since a site may contain more than one page, it is important to designate which page should be accessed first by the visitor to the site, this is the home page.
The way in which any given site is organized should reflect one of a variety of formats, each dictated by some intended criteria. For instance, if you wish to have your visitor follow a fairly straightforward route through your site, you will probably want to make the links and pages reflect a linear pattern, one page following another. On the other hand, if the content you are teaching has some inherent structure, like botany, you may want your organization to mimic the classification structure of the discipline. If your students are free to explore or impose their own structure, then you may employ a random type of structure. Among the typical organizational structures are:
![[ Image ]](Hierarch.GIF)
Allows students to branch out and explore many pages or links, but always return home to refer to some central instructional module.
![[ Image ]](Star_site.GIF)
This format is unique to a particular content structure and is based on the sequence or relationships which exist between the conceptual units of the content being taught. You are the expert in the content area should know best what this structure may be.
![[ Image ]](Content_site.GIF)
These seem unplanned, but really are not. They allow the student a lot of flexibility in browsing, but, in actuality may reflect a particular plan you or the content may have imposed. Random formats usually promote creative or divergent thinking and exploration strategies. Of course there is no way to describe how a random format might look since it reflects a unique structure that you, the designer, may formulate.
Most navigation on the web is done through clicking link activators and students should be fully aware of what the different activators are and how to use them. Most students do! It is part of good web site design to create activators ("Hot Spots" in text, buttons, imagemaps, menus etc.) that are visually obvious and conceptually meaningful. The "click here" type of text link is not very descriptive and may be downright confusing.
The usual types of activators are "Hot" spots in text, menu items, buttons, and what are known as "imagemaps". "Hot Spots" or "Hot Text" typically consist of underlined or differently colored text areas, which when clicked, activate links. In these cases, the content of the text which is highlighted should reflect the significance or destination of the link. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and visitors are sent to destinations they do not wish. Generally, text links change to different colors when clicked and after being activated. You as the designer of the site can specify these colors, but I warn you that they can be reset in the user's browser. Since these types of links are identified by underlining, it is obvious that you must not use text underlining in any other way in your site.
A second type of link activator is the button, which is usually very apparent because it consists not only of text, but the text is placed on a graphic which resembles some type of object or button. Icons, or small symbolic pictures can also be incorporated into the graphic to make a button even more meaningful.
Menus are equally obvious, as long as they are set off by some type of formal graphic such as boxes or color areas. The text in menus which is generally not highlighted is usually larger, bolder and sometimes of a different color.
Imagemaps are extremely useful, but not always clearly identified. An imagemap consists of a picture (photo or graphic) over which has been placed invisible "hot" or clickable areas. In a well designed imagemap, the areas relate meaningfully to the content of the image at that point and to the destination of the link. For instance, an imagemap created over a picture of the signers of the Declaration of Independence would have "hot" areas over each signers face or body, and clicking any one of those areas would take the student to a page where biographical information on that particular person might be found. The greatest problem with imagemaps is, of course, letting the user know what to do with the map, such as where or why they should click on a certain area. Good captioning or instructions will usually solve this problem.
It is not always possible to control where a visitor enters a web site and certainly it is a possibility that we don't purposely plan for, but it happens. Obviously, by publishing the URL of the home page, we can direct the user to that particular page, but it is not assured that they may not stumble across a different page in your site accidentally. One way to reduce this possibility is by assigning relatively cryptic URL's to the other pages, using letters, numbers, or acronyms which could not be easily found in searching.
Whenever we allow a student to activate an external link, they will be leaving the site. A well designed site has built-in safe guards to minimize visitor loss and to help them return should they leave temporarily. One technique is to place all of the external link activators at the bottom or end of the page. In this way, students will generally go through the entire page or even site before we make the external links available to them. Of course, this is not always instructionally feasible, so it is important to build in two-way links in your own pages and to remind students that they can use the back button or Go menu on their browsers to return to your site.
It isn't always easy to check up on where students have been or if they have visited the required pages in your site, but that is all part of the nature of hypertext browsing. Tracking the path that a student takes as they work through a web site is known as an "audit trail" and it is sometimes useful to be able to know exactly where a student has been or what pages they have visited. There is no way to accurately follow this trail, but it is possible to see where a student has been by having them perform some kind of task or "check-in" activity at each page. In this way you can, informally at least, track student's progress through the site.
