Website Content Design Guidelines

Home Page Contents

The homepage should contain the following content:

• The purpose of the website.
• A description of the website's contents.
• The site's owner (i.e., business or webmaster who is responsible for its content).
• Contact information (e.g., email address) to allow the user to contact the owner or webmaster of the site.
• Easy navigation to the main sections of the website.

Rationale:

• Users will not stay at a website if:
  • The site's purpose is unclear.
  • The site's content is unclear.
  • This allows users to follow up with questions and recommendations.
  • They cannot easily navigate to the site's main sections.
• Making the email address a link makes it easier for (and more likely that) the user will send emails and make recommendations.

Common Contents

Each webpage should contain the following common content:

• The title of the webpage.
• A summary of the webpage's contents.
• Valuable content or support for the user's tasks.
• Easy navigation to the homepage, the main sections of the website, and related content.
• Contact information (e.g., email address) to allow the user to contact the author of the webpage or the owner or webmaster of the website.

Rationale:

• Users need to be able to quickly grasp the purpose and contents of each webpage.
• Users read and use webpages for content or to help them perform their tasks.
• Users need to be able to quickly navigate to important or related content.
• Contact information allows users to easily:
  • Follow up with questions and recommendations.
  • Determine the authoritiveness of the website content because the traditional publishing process that filters out inaccurate or misleading may not apply to website content.
  • Learn more about the author of the webpage or the owner or webmaster of the website.

Digital Branding

Every webpage of a commercial website should support the associated digital brand:

• It should be branded with the logo and tag line of the website's owner.
• Content should support the brand identity and associations.
• Because websites are interactive, concentrate on direct-experience branding (improve the users' experience by making the users successful) rather than indirect messaging (attempting to improve the users' experience via fluff images that may actually make the users less productive).

Rationale:

• Commercial websites must be consistent with the brand of the website's owner.
• This enhances marketing and reinforces the digital brand.
• Active direct experience branding is more powerful than passive indirect messaging.

Important Content Placement

Place a webpage's most important content of a webpage:

• At the top.
• On the left side.

Rationale:

• This minimizes the amount of scrolling the user must perform to get to the important content of the site.
• This is where users look first because English is read top to bottom and left to right.

Unique Content

Provide unique content in the website.

Rationale:

• This makes the website more useful and unique.
• This enables the website to successfully compete for visits against similar websites.

Current Content

Keep the website content current:

• Continually update the content of the website.
• Every webpage should provide a last revised date.

Rationale:

• The traditional publishing process that eliminates the publication of obsolete technical information may not apply to website content.
• This helps ensure that the website does not contain obsolete content.
• This helps ensure that the website contains the latest information.
• This greatly promotes repeat visits.
• A revision date enables users to know how current the content is.

Meta Information

Use the <META> tag to provide meta information about each webpage that can be accessed by Web spiders and other Web maintenance tools:

• A set of keywords for each webpage to be indexed.
• A description for each webpage, especially the the home page and major section pages.
• The author of each webpage.

Rationale:

• Internet directories and web search engines will use the keywords and descriptions to categorize and find these pages.
• Web spiders and other maintenance tools can access authority information in machine readable form.

Comments:

• Producing optimal keywords and descriptions requires a deep understanding of the:
  • Content of the webpage.
  • Workings of popular search engines.
  • Keywords used by competing webpages.
• Tools and services exist to optimize keywords and descriptions.
• Some search engines do not properly use keywords and descriptions.

Examples:

• <meta name="Keywords" content="...">
• <meta name="Description" content="...">
• <meta name="Author" content="...">

Searching For Content

Help users search for specific content of non-trivial websites:

• Provide a hierarchical site map.
• Provide a local search engine.
• Provide an alphabetical index.
• Provide both grouped and embedded navigational links.

Rationale:

• This ensures that navigation is successful and quick.
• It can be hard to find specific content in large websites, even if they are well organized.
• The physical storage of the website contents need not be organized exactly as the user sees it because users can navigate it and thus see it several ways. Nevertheless, a close relationship between the physical storage and logical view of the content makes maintenance and enhancement easier.

Content Storage

Store content properly:

• It is reasonable to store limited amounts of static content as HTML files.
• Webpages containing dynamic content should be generated dynamically.
• Larger amounts of content should be stored in one or more database(s) using a content management system.
• Larger amounts of content can be defined and moved in the form of XML.

Rationale:

• HTML is cost effective for small amounts of static content.
• Databases are an efficient way of storing large amounts of content.
• Content manaqement systems provide efficient support for the entire content management activity encluding the storage of content prior to and during publication.
• Automatically generating HTML from XML is rapidly becoming an industry standard due to the many advantages of the combination of HTML and XML (e.g., the separation of content from format, the validation of content structure and completeness).

Content Quality

Obtain the appropriate quality:

• Ensure high quality when it is appropriate.
• Users hate broken links and anchors.

Rationale:

• The appropriate quality is a function of the purpose of the website.
• Sometimes, it is better to have some information available in unpolished form than not to have it available at all.
• Sometimes, Internet time, short schedules, and first mover advantage are more important than quality.
• However, the quality of the website content is a reflection of the professionalism of the website developers, the website owners, and the brand of the associated business.

Unacceptable Content

Avoid the following unacceptable or illegal content:

• Content that is sexist, racist, religiously offensive, or sexually offensive. (e.g., pornography or cursing).
• Content that is illegal:
  • Libellous content.
  • Content that infringes copyrights or other intellectual property rights.
  • Content inciting criminal activity.
• Content that is inconsistent with the digital brand or mission of the website.
• Content that promotes competing commercial websites.

Rationale:

• It is unwise to offend users, customers, and governments.