Introduction

The purpose of this document is to describe the thought and working processes required to build a content site on the Internet. Carefully planning in advance saves a great deal of money and time in building and maintaining a content site.

It is important that government ministries currently planning Internet sites pay attention to the guidelines concerning the structure of government Internet information sites included in the TAKAM instructions 5.4.3¹. In addition, the government Internet committee published a series of guidelines² concerning relationships with contractors during site construction.

The document was written under the assumption that the constructing ministry is a full partner in the planning stages and supervises the implementation itself. The information in the document emphasizes material relating to the professionals involved in site construction who are not necessarily employees of the ministry. We believe it is important that this information be in front of those ordering the site, so they may deepen their understanding of the process of site construction and receive a better product.

The government Internet Committee is preparing a supplier tender for Internet site builders. This tender will provide government ministries with a list of approved contractors who meet the criteria necessary for the construction of government ministry content sites. The tender will be conducted during 1998 and renewed annually. For this reason, considerations in choosing an external company for the construction of government ministry sites are not included in this document, and will be included in the tender when it is published.

The planning stage

The planning stage is the first stage in the construction of an Internet site and primarily includes definitions and characterization. It is desirable at this stage to convene all those involved in the process, in order to establish a set of collectively agreed-upon expectations concerning the site’s goals and target audience. These definitions will later facilitate providing the professionals who sill design and construct the site, with the correct points of emphasis.

After concluding the preliminary characterization process, it is possible to discus questions relating to the site's visual identity. For instance, is there any relationship between the site in question and other sites by the same ministry or by other ministries, which could be expressed in the site's visual make-up? Are there certain symbols or a certain atmosphere that the site in question should transmit?

It is important to list these points at the planning stage. It is recommended a this stage to surf various sites on the web and find a few sites that those involved find visually pleasing. It is important to emphasize that colours and forms to be used on the site need not be exactly defined at this stage. Such intervention in the site's graphic design will leave the designer with very little freedom and will not allow him/her room for expression or to achieve the best possible results. It is therefore desirable to transmit to the designer points of emphasis rather than explicit, unequivocal instructions.

At the conclusion of the characterization process, a discussion must be held concerning the manner in which information is to be transferred to the site. The manner of transmission is a derivative of the site's goals and target audience. A site whose purpose is one-way information transmission does not require many interaction tools, while a site designed for two-way data transmission, in other words also from the target audience to those behind the site or among the audience itself, requires various types of interaction tools.

Second Stage - Functional Structure

Upon completion of site characterization, it is possible to move on to the second stage in which the planner must create a flow chart of site structure³. The flow chart is designed to organize the subjects and contents which the site will handle into interconnected structures (clusters).

Two extreme situations can be described. In the first, the site's entry screen or home page includes a large number of subjects and links⁴, but the number of levels in the site is minimal. This sort of screen makes it difficult for the site visitor who does not know what to choose or where to go. In the opposite situation, the home page contains a small number of subjects and links, while the number of levels in the sites is relatively large (more than five). Such a site causes the visitor to lose a sense of direction and forces the visitor to make many transitions before reaching the desired information.

Two extreme examples of site structure

At the end of the process, the site will be judged according to its efficiency and the time a user needs to find desired information⁵. A site in which navigation is awkward will alienate visitors. A site in which subjects are not categorized simply will cause visitors to search in vain for desired information.

It is important to include tools to assist the user in locating information such as a search engine which enables location of documents included in the site, a site map⁶, including the structure of the menu tree of the site, and a cataloged index, including indications of the site's central subjects.

The flow chart must be clear to the site planner and include the site's principal subject areas (see Appendix B).

At this stage, a number of functional components can be defined, such as the structure of the site's home page and components of the site's "Toolbox"⁷.

In conclusion, in planning the site, a number of components must be considered.

• Visitors' orientation inside the site.
• Number of levels in the site. (It is not desirable to include more than five levels in one site.)
• Organization of information in clusters, enabling visitors to locate information quickly.
• Provision of navigation tools in order to help the visitor⁸ remain oriented in the site at all times.
• Provision of a number of alternative tools⁹ to assist the visitor in locating information.

Third Stage - Production

The production stage includes primarily work by the professionals responsible for the site. At this stage, the graphic designer prepares the site's outline and graphic elements, the programmer writes applications, and the html programmer creates the site's information pages. The text to be included in the site should be collected and scanned¹⁰, and should undergo linguistic editing and proofreading¹¹, or translation, already at this stage, in order not to leave corrections and proofreading for later stages. At this stage as well, proper planning and maintenance of proper work procedures are important, in order to later save valuable work time on updates.

Planning File Structure

Production stage work begins with planning the structure of the files on the content site. It is important that the file structure reflect the site structure and the kinds of files the sites includes. Therefore, directories must be created for each subject included in the site, which will simplify updating and maintaining the site. Therefore, for example, audio files and images should be stored in special directories whose names indicate the content. As a rule, the names of files on the site have great importance. File names must hold significance for both the site builder and for the visitor. They must be unique in order to be easily identifiable. Long, complex names or names that are too short and insignificant, make various uses of the site and the establishment of unique URLs for different sections of the site, more difficult. In addition, the problematic nature of storing sites on computers that only accept 8-letter file names and 3-letter suffixes, should be considered.

Template

Planninsite's information page structure also includes preparation of a template for typical pages. The template is written in html code and includes information primarily useful for the technical staff writing and updating information pages. The template should include the following items: appropriate meta tags which label the site, the name of the site creator, key words for the site's information pages, the site's html code, and information concerning copyrights. In addition, the template includes comments which appear in the html code but are only visible by examining the code itself using Page Source. The comments are designed to define various areas of the page and separate them from each other. These comments will be very helpful in updating the pages at a later date. After creation of the basic template, it can be duplicated and used as a base for the construction of the rest of the site's information pages. In conclusion, it is important that each page include the following information as part of its code: creation date, date of last update, name of file containing this page, creator's name and department (See sample template in Appendix A).

Graphic Elements

The site's graphic elements are created by the graphic designer, based on general guidelines provided the site's planners. It is important to review a sketch of the site's visuals, in order to save valuable design time later. After approval of the sketch and receipt of comments, the graphic designer can continue with more detailed design of the graphic elements. At this stage, it is important to consider the weight of the graphic elements and the total number of such elements per page. Heavy graphic elements (100k and above) or a large number of graphic elements on a single page (more than ten elements per page), significantly slow load times and make the site "heavy". Compression software which reduces the weight of the graphic elements, economic use of graphic elements and a reasonable number of graphic elements per page, will all make the site lightweight to load and use.

Audio and Video

A number of problems are indigenous to the creation of audio and visual elements :

1. The format in which the product is saved: there is currently no agreed-upon standard for saving these elements, and therefore the format must be considered. It is generally recommended to save the product in at least two formats (WAV and RealAudio).
2. Product size and means of transmission to user: it is important to maintain reasonably-sized files which enable acceptable download times. Streaming technology, currently supported by a number of suppliers, provides a solution to the size problem, but the limited number of concurrent users able to download the file from the site is a disadvantage.
3. Sampling quality: tools for sampling and processing audio and video files are more expensive than the other tools necessary for site construction. It is important to maintain high original sample quality and convert this to high quality digital media without noise. It is recommended to conduct the conversion to digital format in a professional laboratory.

Copyrights

It should be noted that all components of the site must be free of any copyright problems. In recent years, the number of legal suits and threats of legal suits for violation of copyrights, has multiplied. It is important to ascertain that material used on the site (text, audio, video, etc.) is usable without permission, or if permission is required in order to present the materials on the site. Whenever permission is granted to present certain material on the site, the site's terms of use¹² should include a note about the right to use such material, noting any limitations on use of the material for the site visitor. In addition, a waiver of moral rights should be obtained from anyone who created material for the site, and a determination should be made about making reference to creators' names on the site as well as about the site owner's right to make changes in material created for the site. , It is advisable that copyright matters be handled by the ministry's legal counsel (See comment 2 again).

Fourth Stage - Integration

During the integration stage, all the relevant components related to the site are united. This is essentially the concluding stage of work for the various professionals involved in constructing the site. This stage should take very little time, if the site was planned in detail. After combining the various components into a single presentation, quality checks and final proofreading must be conducted. Quality checks will locate various problems, such as pages that are not linked and errors stemming from faulty combination of various components. It is important not to leave text corrections for this stage but to make those during the production stage.

Fifth Stage - Ongoing operation

Many believe that site construction work is completed the moment the site goes online. However, the essence of a site in this medium is its up-to-date quality and interactivity. A site that is not updated will lose its significance and users will neglect it quickly. Therefore, immediately upon completion of a site and opening it to the public, a plan for updating the site must be made.

In order to maintain a reasonable level of visitor interest in the site, innovations in the site should be discussed periodically. In addition, graphic elements, known as "teasers", attract visitor attention to various subjects and materials included in the site.

Large companies bother to change the opening picture of the site monthly, or start by designing a number of opening screens presented in random order. In this way, the companies raise interest and evoke the dynamic nature of their sites. One such example is the Hewlett-Packard site at http://www.hp.com.

Statistics software¹³ offers important information on the amount of use of various portions of the site and problems in site structure. Reading the results of statistical analysis assists in locating problems relating to the division of subjects on the site, inaccessibility of popular subjects, and more. The webmaster must study the results of statistical analysis of site visits and change site structure accordingly.

Links in the site, which enable us to design site structure and link the site's information pages to each other, also play an important role in human engineering. Each links should be considered as if it includes a certain "weight" component. A link's weight can be achieved through font size, colour, or use of text emphasis. A link which "weighs more" attracts the visitor to choose it, thus directing the visitor to important sections of the site.

Lastly, some friendly advice. One of the attributes which contributed a great deal to the development of the Internet world is its characteristic simplicity. Therefore, in constructing a site we must also maintain this simplicity, so that an average person with basic Internet skills can use the site easily and find what s/he desires.

Bibliography

1. http://webreview.com/resources - the site includes many links to information about planning and constructing Internet sites, including a great deal of information on technical aspects of the process.
2. http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/np17/wpdesign/wpdres.htm - the site teaches about the various aspects of constructing Internet sites. Recommended to anyone handling the matter.
3. Designing the User Interface , third edition, Ben Shneiderman (ISBN 0-201-69497-2); published by Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Appendices

Notes: