The Money Page

Low tech, high yield: A funny thing happened on the way to the shopping cart. One Web designer found a simpler way to make e-commerce pay. Alan Herrell shows you The Money Page.

Herrell, Alan. List Apart, A (1999). Articles>Web Design>E Commerce

Monitoring Order: Visual Desire, the Organization of Web Pages, and Teaching the Rules of Design  

Monitoring Order looks at two potential sources -- writings about book design and writings about visual arrangement in painting -- for helping teachers of writing think about teaching visual composition for Web pages; both sources are problematic but suggest directions for further study.

Wysocki, Anne Frances. Kairos (1998). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>Visual Rhetoric

More Alike Than We Think

Users were having trouble learning about the Open University's special form of distance education on the existing site. To solve this problem, we wanted to make recommendations for the style and format of the information as part of our design.

Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability

More Website Manner Tips

Custom error pages are better than stock error pages, and there are even better practical solutions that may eliminate the need for custom error pages to begin with.

Baker, Adam and Keith Instone. Merges.net (2001). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Moving a Community to the Web: Creating Hyperviews: Online  

This panel discusses the issues involved in creating Hyperviews: Online, the web-based newsletter for the STC Online Information Special Interest Group (SIG). The panel explores why Hyperviews, the hardcopy newsletter for the Online Information SIG, was moved to the web and the design decisions the editorial staff made to accomplish the move. The panel also discusses what tools and methods they used, what worked and what didn’t, as well as future directions for Hyperviews. The panel includes the Online Information SIG manager, newsletter editor, and newsletter assistant editor. The panel will also encourage feedback and brainstorming from the Online Information SIG community it serves.

Bledsoe, Bill, Karen Mobley and Scott DeLoach. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Web Design>Community Building

Moving from Hardcopy to Online: The Information Metamorphosis  

This workshop explores the fundamental differences between hardcopy and online media, analyzes hardcopy information for online suitability, and gives participants an opportunity to view information in its 'before' hardcopy state and then in its 'after' online state.

Coe, Marlana A. and Leigh Waller. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Web Design

Moving to an XML-Based Web Site

In early 2007, I started the task of reworking the ageing HyperWrite Web site. The site was originally created in 1995. It underwent a major rework (to a frames-based design) in 1997, and was reworked in 1999, 2000 and 2002. In the decade since the Web site was launched, not only has Web technology moved on, but HyperWrite's activities, focus and business direction are now quite different. Time and budget were set aside to renovate the site to better serve HyperWrite's business needs, and to serve as a practical example of the company's capabilities.

Self, Tony. HyperWrite (2007). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Case Studies

Moving Toward Knowledge-Building Communities in Health Information Website Design

In this paper, we describe our work with the Arthritis Source website and our efforts to develop a community of learners in that context. We argue that given proper architectural support, efforts to listen to learners can effectively foster collaboration between the authors of an informational web site and its users and help community building among its users through a dynamic knowledge base.

Turns, Jennifer, Kristina Liu and Tracey S. Wagner. Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (2002). Articles>Web Design>Community Building

Moving Toward Knowledge-Building Communities in Informational Web Site Design    

In this article, we describe how a knowledge-building community perspective can lead to a framework for designing an informational Web site. We illustrate the framework through our work on the Arthritis source, an informational Web site helping users acquire information about arthritis. The resulting framework provides one means of addressing challenges that arise in the design and development of such informational Web sites.

Turns, Jennifer, Tracey Wagner and Kristen Shuyler. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Web Design>Community Building

Multidimensional Audience Analysis for Dynamic Information    

As technical communication gains the technology to deliver dynamic custom documents, the importance of audience analysis increases. As a major factor in supporting dynamic adjustment of document content, the audience analysis must clearly capture the range of user goals and information needs in a flexible manner. Replacing a linear audience analysis model with a multidimensional model provides one method of achieving that flexibility. With a minimum of three separate dimensions to capture topic knowledge, detail required, and user cognitive ability, this model provides the writer a means of connecting content with information requirements and ensuring the dynamic document fits varying audience needs.

Albers, Michael J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Web Design>Audience Analysis>Personalization

My 50 Cents Worth: Web Sites and Pinball Machines

Instead of thinking of your web site in terms of flowcharts and site maps, consider these five reasons your web site is like a pinball game.

Janisch, Troy. icon Interactive (2004). Articles>Internet>Web Design>Marketing

My Blog, My Outboard Brain

Theoretically, you can annotate your bookmarks, entering free-form reminders to yourself so that you can remember why you bookmarked this page or that one. I don't know about you, but I never actually got around to doing this. Until I started blogging.

Doctorow, Cory. O'Reilly and Associates (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

My CMS Ate My Search Engine Rankings

A dynamically-delivered site in and of itself need not denigrate your search engine rankings. Google and other spiders can follow dynamically-generated pages, up to a point. The key is to have links elsewhere on the site pointing specifically to those pages. If each page results from a purely dynamic query (e.g. using session variables), then you could be in trouble.

Byrne, Tony. CMSworks (2004). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Search

The Mysterious Acronym Tag

There is a seldom-used tag called 'acronym'. It was originally mark up, well, acronyms. There is a very similar tag, also seldom-used, called 'abbr', which is intended to mark up abbreviations. Both of these tags were introduced in HTML 4.0. On the face of it, apart from marking up the text, these inline tags do little else.

HyperWrite (2002). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML

The Myth of Optimal Web Design

Perfection in design is not possible. No matter how much is known about a given business, user group or technology, you can not simultaneously satisfy all possible objectives. For any website or user interface, there are no mathematics, and no algorithms, for deciding which objectives to satisfy in a single design, or even forThe swiss army knife: a balance of interesting design tradeoffs accurately defining an optimal solution within any of those objectives. There are usability, design and business methods that effectively evaluate and illuminate promising directions , but they are sensitive tools, that work more as guides, rather than maps. In general, any form of design involves too many simultaneous possible objectives and forms of solutions to enable any overall mathematical or algorithmic based confidence. An optimal design, in the broadest sense, is a mythical idea.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2001). Articles>Web Design>Assessment

The Myth of the Genius Designer

Having a good designer doesn't eliminate the need for a systematic usability process. Risk reduction and quality improvement both require user testing and other usability methods.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Testing

National Policies for Government Web Writers

Every country has its own requirements for public sector web sites. Legislation and policies vary greatly, and express an attitude. I base my Quality Web Content workshops for government web content writers on the policy of the country concerned. Some countries consider that an accessible site requires accessible writing. Others don't.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Writing

New Elements in HTML 5

HTML 5 introduces new elements to HTML for the first time since the last millennium. New structural elements include aside, figure, and section. New inline elements include time, meter, and progress. New embedding elements include video and audio. New interactive elements include details, datagrid, and command.

Harold, Elliotte Rusty. IBM (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5

New Heuristics for Understanding Older Adults as Web Users    

This article reports on a study performed for AARP on the needs of older Web users. It defines a model of older users that includes four dimensions (age, ability, aptitude, and attitude). It defines 20 heuristics, as well as personas and tasks for reviewing Web sites, and a methodology for doing persona-based, task-based heuristic review that would allow us to evaluate many sites in a relatively short time in a highly realistic way. Finally, it reports the results of an analysis of 50 Web sites for general audiences that include older adults, using that methodology.

Chisnell, Dana E., Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish and Amy Lee. Technical Communication Online (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Elderly

New Toys or Tactics for New Communication Challenges?

New technologies are changing the ways we can achieve excellence in communication. Three new web-based communication tools have caught the imagination of innovators and early adopters. Blogs and wikis are proliferating all over the Internet, and podcasts look like they will soon be commonplace.

Williams, Tudor. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Web Design>Blogging>Podcasting

New Ways to Access Old Skills  

How technical communicators in Canada’s second largest bank promoted their skills, developed an intranet site on a shoestring budget, and established themselves as one of CIBC’s pre-eminent online publishers.

Tunbridge, Marie and Stephanie Copp. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC>Web Design

Newbie Web Author Checklist: Before You Publish That Project

If you've recently created your first website and you're getting ready to publish it, then this page is for you. I've helped hundreds of people create their first websites, and I really enjoy helping them move from their first tentative forays into electronic authorship to more advanced projects. Follow this checklist before you publish your web project, and you'll avoid many simple technical issues.

Jerz, Dennis G. Seton Hill University (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing

The Newest Online Communication Tool: Collaborative Web Pages Anybody Can Edit

A wiki is a web site that anybody can change. You may have already visited a wiki without even knowing it. Wikis are poised to become one of the most important online communication tools we’ve seen in a long time. While blogs are justifiably getting most of the attention paid to the online world these days, wikis are quietly weaving their way into both the external and internal communication world.

Holtz, Shel. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Wikis

Newsletter Co-Registration, and other Partnerships

When someone signs up for my newsletter, I list some other newsletters they might be interested in on my site's thank-you page. People can simply check a box next to the other newsletters they want to receive, click one button, and they're done. The publishers I partner with do the same for me, listing the Excess Voice newsletter on their sign-up thank-you pages.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration

NHibernate Best Practices with ASP.NET, Generics, and Unit Tests

This article describes best practices for leveraging the benefits of NHibernate, ASP.NET, Generics, and unit testing together.

McCafferty, Billy. Code Project, The (2006). Articles>Web Design>Server Side Includes>ASP