Designing and Organizing Webpage Navigation
With the inception of EduWeb, I have decided to devote a few posts to web design. Today I would like to talk about navigation design and organization. If you don’t know much about web design, I recommend “The Non-Designer’s Web Book” by Williams and Tollett. It’s easy to find answers to specific questions and it contains a lot of graphics. Here is a quote about navigation design from page 142, “If you can easily find your way around a site and find your way back to the home page at any time from any page, the navigation is well designed.” One of the really great things about EduWeb is that the navigation is built right in so that you don’t need to create it yourself!.
You will still need to decide on the way your site will be organized, however. To begin this process, make a list of the information to be included in your site. Next make an outline based on your list. Sketch a flowchart, use sticky notes or use a visualization software like Inspiration to graphically represent your outline. During this process of moving things around, you may decide to combine several smaller topics together or to split larger topics into smaller, separate ones.
You may choose to organize your website by grade level, by subject taught or by teacher. Whatever plan you use, try to be consistent. Ask others how they would organize their site. Go school website surfing and see how others have done it. One place to begin your search might be http://www.edutech.nodak.edu/schools/
Consider your audience! Most school websites are visited by parents, students and community members. Remember, the aim of great web organization is ease of use!