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Topic: An index.html should contain what ? (Read 1598 times)
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gbaynes
RootsChat Member
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Posts: 119
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Let's start at the beginning, at the top should be your heading with the title of your site. A monogram or logo can also go here.
Next should be the navigation menus/buttons/signposts. After all your regulars will have read the front page before and will not want to scroll down to the bottom. However this navigation can be small and unobtrusive, the regulars will know where to go and will not need flashing lights to find their way. Don't make it too small.
Next comes the patter. Why should we, the paying public, come and see your site. You are allowed to boast about how well you have done in collecting all these 657 people on 5 continents back 32 generations to King Arthurs father in law. But do put in something about the family as well. Even if every generation were farm labourers they can still be interesting. Photos can be useful - but don't leave them anonymous. Give us their names, or at least their place in the family - Great Uncle Bert is a whole lot better than nothing. Also, be ruthless, if a picture is over or under exposed then don't use it. It may well be the only one of Great Uncle Bulgaria, but the index.html page is not the place for it.
Remember too, the eye has trouble reading long lines of print. That's why newspapers have columns.
Visitors should be able to make contact with you from this home page, so either place the links (email and/or Guestbook) on the page or put them together in a separate page and link to that.
Any adverts, attributions, recommendations should come next (keep it brief) , and then finally, when the visitor has seen, read and inwardly digested all that, you can give them the main navigation to enter your site. This main navigation should be obvious. Don't go hiding links in pictures or worse still anonymous shapes. (people do) If you have to tell people to click on the picture to enter the site, then you are doing it wrong.
You do not have to list all that linearly down the page. You can have things on the left, stuff in the middle and others on the right. Oh and by the way try and get it into one screen so the new visitor doesn't have to scroll down, or worse still to scroll across. Avoid stuff, which shouldn't be there. Do you really need that cute/annoying animated gif? (You can't get rid of freddy!!!) Oh and avoid exclamation marks as well.
Use colour, people have paid a lot of money to have beautiful colour monitors with which to view the internet. Black writing on a white background is wasting their money. Avoid dark colours, bright colours, clashing colours. Designers use terms like bold and colourful to cover up their mistakes, we humans, have to live with them, or paint over them. try to use textured effects for backgrounds, they are easier on the eyes, but beware of backgrounds which act like camoflage hiding the text. Get a colour wheel and learn how to use it.
Look at my homepage and see how many of the above, I am doing wrong.
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Gadget
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Gadget by Pels
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Interesting home page - not sure about the moving nav buttons though - makes my eyes go funny, which meant that I had to get out before I could read/look at anything on there. And my eyes are not all that bad.
One thing that you have to remember is that there are people out there with various visual impairments. They can change their Internet Options if they are using IE but text should, if possible, be in a san serif (e.g Ariel) and equiv of 12 -14 in size.
Can't make any comments about anything else - couldn't focus because of the movement. Sorry 
Gadget
(I presume you wanted me to say something like this  )
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Burrow Digger
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The "under construction" gif at the top is a huge NO-NO 
To me thats a sign of an amateur. 
Also those LARGE gifs with arrows have got to go.
I had no problems with the rest of the page.
BD
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gbaynes
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Fair comment.
It really started out as a lesson for others but ended up with me realising that my own homepage was a mess and long overdue for an overhaul.
But it is hard, parting company with old friends.
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Comosus
RootsChat Veteran
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This isn't directly about your website, but in your website link in your profile, you have http://baynes.rootschat.net\index.htm/ when it should be http://baynes.rootschat.net/index.htm/
Andrew
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Leeds - HOLMES (also at Boston Spa, Thorp Arch), SCHOLEY/SCOREY/SCHORAH (also at Stanley, Wakefield), TURVEY (also at Birmingham), WARD, WHITE, WOODHEAD (also at Halton, Whitkirk, Templenewsam). Dewbury - CRAWSHAW, GLEDHILL, SPEIGHT Great Horton - RAMSDEN, SHACKLETON, WOOLER Woolsthorpe by Belvoir - SMITH Barrowby and South Stoke, Lincolnshire - PARKER Derby and Newhall - STREET Census information Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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gbaynes
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Fixed... but it still worked. I believe that the reason it works is that Windows and Linux disagree on the separator between directories. And to ensure that the internet system works, they both accept either the forward or the back slash.
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gbaynes
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I have updated my home page. to be more in keeping with the advice given.
The animated gifs have gone.(rip) So too has the irrelevant content.
I have gained vertical space by putting things on top of each other.
Hopefully the new page is an improvement.
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Comosus
RootsChat Veteran
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Posts: 780
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The boxes overlap eachother in Firefox, for some reason. It works in Internet Explorer though.
This is what I see in Firefox:
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Leeds - HOLMES (also at Boston Spa, Thorp Arch), SCHOLEY/SCOREY/SCHORAH (also at Stanley, Wakefield), TURVEY (also at Birmingham), WARD, WHITE, WOODHEAD (also at Halton, Whitkirk, Templenewsam). Dewbury - CRAWSHAW, GLEDHILL, SPEIGHT Great Horton - RAMSDEN, SHACKLETON, WOOLER Woolsthorpe by Belvoir - SMITH Barrowby and South Stoke, Lincolnshire - PARKER Derby and Newhall - STREET Census information Crown Copyright from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk |
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gbaynes
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Thanks Andrew
Believe it or not, Firefox has the page as it is intended.
If you move your mouse over the half hidden rectangles they will magically jump to the top.
Sorry if this is too much like hard work. I like to think of it as audience participation.
IE is way behind the times with html and its next version is reputed to not be much better.
Which is why lots of people have moved to Firefox and Opera.
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gbaynes
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Man is an inquisitive animal 
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Gadget
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So am I. To quote:
"I wouldn't have got where I am today....................
It looks good on IE though. Glad you got rid of those gifs 
Gadget
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gbaynes
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I have books like that. They tell you to design for the guy with a 28kbs phone line and a black and white monitor.
I don't think there are that many people out there like that.
I would not advocate the use of large file sizes nor any thing else which would require the user to spend large amounts of money to be able to view a website.
But as the newer modern browsers are all available free on the internet, I do not feel that I should be constrained by the older browsers.
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gbaynes
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But seriously folks, thanks for all the comments, for and against. I shall bear them all in mind when I next modify my home page.
If we could see ourselves as others see us....
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kerryb
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I have books like that. They tell you to design for the guy with a 28kbs phone line and a black and white monitor.
I don't think there are that many people out there like that.
I would not advocate the use of large file sizes nor any thing else which would require the user to spend large amounts of money to be able to view a website.
But as the newer modern browsers are all available free on the internet, I do not feel that I should be constrained by the older browsers.
Hi
Just had to say that I beg to differ here. It really depends on who you are trying to attract to your website, if you just want technophobes with the latest bandwidth and gizzmo, fine but if you want Jo or Josephine Bloggs who has a small computer at home, doesn't use it much and only has dial up they are not going to be able to use your site.
Believe me, there are a lot of people still on dial up who don't want to pay £17 a month to use the computer on the odd occasion for their hobby or whatever and I think it is wrong to disregard them. The government is good at that one as well, take digital TV for instance...
Anyway yes, modern browsers are available but when they are 60mb or more to download, if you only have dial up you are not going to bother are you?
Well that my penny's worth, for what it is worth.
Incidentally I have broadband and yes I have Firefox and Opera.
Kerry
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Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.ukSearching for my family - Baldwin - Sussex, Middlesex, Cork, Pilbeam - Sussex, Harmer - Sussex, Terry - Surrey, Kent, Rhoades - Lincs, Roffey - Surrey, Traies - Devon & Middlesex & many many more to be found on my website .... www.kerrysfamilyhistory.co.uk |
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