How to make the organization of your web site simple and intuitive
by Deepak Sharma
How to make the organization of your web site simple and intuitive
Design architecture is not just a technical proposition
Apparently design architecture comes in the picture the moment you plan to
build your web site, and it constitutes a crucial technical consideration.
Design architecture is chiefly concerned with the use of state-of-the-art web
technologies and latest enabling tools to provide a robust skeleton to your web
site. Here the most important thing to appreciate is that technology or the
technical process is all meant for user convenience and needs.
Sometimes it happens that even if the web site exhibits a lot of features and
appreciably well design architecture, it fails to woo users. The reasons?
Actually the situation turns out to be something like where users do not, in
fact, need all the features it employs: what they need on the web site, they
simply do not find probably because the owner or builder of the web site did
not take into active consideration the precise needs and wants of the users -
the target audience. This kind of scenario might be a dreaded plight for the
business the web site was brought into existence for.
So, what can be inferred from this sort of mess? Well, it is always advisable
to see the big picture no matter what you undertake to accomplish. Right here
the web development process. Before you headstart with your website development
initiative, an ideation process must precede it.
The ideation process must revolve to find out the answers of a few vital
questions. Bear in mind that these are the stuff which can act as shining star
to show you direction while you go ahead with the process. Here are they to
make you think unless you get the definite answers:
Why at all do you need a web site?
What purpose is it expected to serve?
Whom is it going to serve? i.e. Who happens to be your target audience?
What can your target audience can expect to get out of it?
What do you expect from your web site?
Let your design architecture respond to these answers accordingly
Once you scratched your head and pulled out the right answers, believe me, you
have got the direction. Now, proceed along the path accordingly. Reconsider the
intricacies of design architecture with these answers on your mind to make sure
that your web site employs the features what your users will love to find.
Therefore, it is apt to correlate the technical possibilities with the non
technical i.e. behavioral and business imperatives so that your hard labor is
rewarded with worthwhile results.
Keep the backend self-explanatory for easy maintenance
Building a web site is not one time engagement. Web site should keep pace with
the business it supports. There is hardly any need to mention here that if
business does not grow with time, there is something seriously wrong with it.
Professionally managed business grows with time, so does the web site.
Therefore, web site needs to be updated regularly to reflect the progressive
phase of your business, or to cater to evolving needs of the consumers.
Backend as the name suggests is something which is behind the scenes, giving
your web site a solid foundation to stand. From the backend, your web site is
nothing but an accumulation of varying files and folders that goes into the
making of it. With the growth of your web site, the number of files and folders
goes on increasing.
It can truly be a frightening experience when you have to steer clear your way
amidst tons of files and folders to update your web site if you have not
organized them intuitively right from the outset. This is virtually impossible
for anyone to remember what is contained in what folder if some sort of
rationale or correlation does not forms the equations.
The best way, arguably, is to keep the name of the files and folders
self-explanatory and to organize in a way that sounds convincing. For small web
sites, it is a better idea to keep all HTML files in one folder, and images in
another. As the web site grows, you can make folders and subfolders in logical
manner to enhance findability.
However, this simplistic solution does hold true for big and complex web sites.
In such case, you can develop your own logic which you can recall easily the
moment you try your hands on updating. Like, if you frequently add content on
your site, you can organize your files and folders by date. Or, if you are into
the business of many products, you can put in place product wise organization.
Other possibilities could be region wise, feature wise, segment wise
organization only if they apply to your business. Best of all, put a little
hard work to develop an intuitive site map and organize the stuff in strict
conformity. It will act as a point of reference -- if and when the need arises.
Avoid using shortcuts in naming your files and folders
Typing full names, at times, appears to be painstaking. That's the reason it is
not difficult to see files and folders on the web sites strangely spelled as if
they are written in altogether different language. People use shortcuts; it
gives a tough time to others when they strive to decipher them and strains the
server too while go on reading.
This practice should stop as it might prove bothersome to you and detrimental
to your business as well. Please remember that avoidance of this practice is
advantageous - for you, your web site, and more importantly, for your end
users.
This is precisely because names of your files and folders get reflected in the
URLs. Therefore, your URLs can become no less than a museum in themselves.
Tough to understand, tougher to remember, and very easy to drive the traffic
away. This is so because some users are in the habit of navigating on the site,
after landing on it from somewhere, by deleting some portion of the URL in the
browser bar. Personalized, hardly understandable style of naming of files and
folders could be damn annoying for them.
So, what could be understandable style of naming of files and folders? Here is
the light.
Follow the site map in naming exercise.
Use lower cases. Avoid the use of space and characters like |, &, *, %,
etc.
Prefer not to use more than one extension while naming.
Period is only to be used before extension.
Use underscore (_) to separate two word blocs in URL in order to make it
correlated with the site map and sound convincing.
Use absolute and relative link to your advantage
Keep in mind that the exclusive benefits of the above kinds of links when it
comes to use the linking plan on your web site sensibly - and in your better
interest.
Absolute link is something which is used whilst linking your web page to some
another page belonging to altogether different web site. Absolute link owning
to their property to link to other web site is detailed one, and cannot be
mentioned in short.
Like for example, if you wish to link your web page, let's say, to Portfolio
section of our site i.e. www.blueappleonline.com you should provided with the
URL as it appears on the browser bar pertaining to that section, viz.
http://www.blueappleonline.com/portfolio/ . When done so in this
manner, it will instruct the browser to quit its current location and travel
all the way to come at http://www.blueappleonline.com/portfolio/
.
On the contrary, relative links are used to link one web page to another web
page but within the same web site. The links provided are not with complete
URL. Instead, they are indicative of relative position of the target page to
the current one on the same server.
The point worth to be noted is that complete URLs can be given to accomplish
intra site mobility, but it will make browser find its way from the root or
beginng to the specified link. All this process consumes time, and might not be
even noticeable for one or two such URLs, but plenty of them can subject users
to most despised wait, and make browser work harder which can be avoided for
better speed.
Here are some examples of relative links. Suppose, for example, you want to link
our Design Gallery at
http://www.blueappleonline.com/portfolio/Design-Gallery-1.asp to
Business Solutions at
http://www.blueappleonline.com/portfolio/business-solutions.asp which
is in the same directory i.e. Portfolio , you can avoid writing the complete
URL just by providing the link:
Let's consider some other example of relative link. If you want to link to some
other page which is altogether in different directory, you can use a useful
command viz .. /
Here is how to use it:
< a href="../Name of Directory/Name of File with Extension >
For instance < a href="../edgevantage@india/patner-with-us.asp> will
direct the browser to come to Partner with Us section in Edgevantage@INDIA
directory regardless of wherever you happen to be at our corporate web site.
I wish your web site to be structurally simple with these useful guidelines.
About the Author
Deepak Sharma is a Web
Designer at BlueApple, a
Web Design and Development Company with a well connected development
infrastructure in India having a strong portfolio with global clientele and
offering superior web services and solutions at competitive costs.
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