Some General Guidelines

• Know your goals
  • what is the message?
  • who are the target audience?
  • what design tradeoffs/resources are you willing to commit to publishing?
• Keep it simple
  • plan your pages (and the relationship between them) before you write
  • emphasize content over form
  • use graphics (images) only when they contribute to the message
  • don't get carried away with fancy formatting
• Good work is never done
  • quality pages require continuous updating and revision
  • links need to be checked regularly for accuracy
  • web publishing technology is changing rapidly-take refresher courses in "how to"
• View "source" of web pages that impress you
  • it is generally acceptable to borrow ideas from other people's web pages
  • other people's text and graphics are copyright by the author
• Always test your documents with several browsers
  • different browsers interpret HTML in slightly different ways
  • remember that some people use non-graphical browsers such as lynx
  • if you decide to use non-standard features, warn your readers in advance
• Always put your documents in context
  • sign and date your documents - users need information about author and currency to judge whether documents fit their needs
  • an e-mail address on your pages will allow users to give you feedback
  • include a link back to your main document from any subdocuments

Things we haven't covered