Recommendations
for HTML page developers

Know your target audience. Think about who's going to surf your sight. Think about why they want your sight. Think about what your page is going to be used for. Be cautious of using exotic lay-outs, fonts, and other tricks with HTML. Many AOL people use basic browsers that don't use advanced features. Some people use text-only browsers so if you might include an alternative text tag that explains an in-line GIF-file. Be cautious of "jokes", humor is easily misinterpreted. Readers outside of your cultural background may interpret your wording in an unexpected way.

Keep the front page simple and clear. This is the page from which visitors will decide to surf into, or away from your sight. If your front page take a long time to load, chances are nobody will wait to see it. Keep it small and don't use large graphics. The front page should clearly represent what the sight has to offer.

Keep the structure of your sight clear and simple. Hyper-links should come at the beginning of your paragraphs. At the end of long pages you should include a hyper-link to the top of the page. Always include hyper-links to the parent page, and or the home page. If a hyper-link points to an extremely long page or a large image or file, include a warning and it's length in kilobytes.

Mention the full URL of the page at the bottom or top of your page because Netscrape can't display a URL in the browser. Always include your name as the author of a page. Put your email address at the bottom of each page so people can contact you .This is not necessarily a 'mailto:'; just using your mail address keeps away those who make useless noise.

Check your page with several browsers using default settings. The majority of your public will use the default settings of the browser they prefer. Always offer an image, movie, sound, ... file in a 'standard' format. If the file performs better in another format, include a hyper-link.

Realize that people link to your sight.

If you rename or move one or more of your HTML files, inform your readers about it in the top page or the news file. Make a small page with the old page name, clearly indicate the change and make a hyperlink to the new page. Keep that file active as long as that page is accessed. Put two dates at the bottom of each your pages: the date that the pages was first made available, and the date that you made the last update.

Realize that pages containing images, sound, and movies will probably be among your most popular pages. Promote these pages on your home page. Always tag multimedia files with the length in kilobytes of the files. Clearly indicate the formats you offer, so the reader can easily access the most appropriate format. Show a part of the image file right on the page. Do not resize it, just use a representative image. By doing so the reader can get an idea of what the complete, 'real thing' will look like. Convert large image files to interlaced GIFs. This format will begin to display while the image is still downloading. It won't download any faster, but viewing the download of such an interlaced GIF often reduces the subjective waiting time.

This page was prepared by Patrick Vanouplines (pvouplin@vub.ac.be) 
URL of this page is: [http://www.vub.ac.be/STER/www.astro/htmlreco.htm] 
Last modified: 1995 October 03. This page is ©1995.

http://www.vub.ac.be/STER/www.astro/htmlreco.htm