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Table-of-contents pages

To implement fast, functional, and fat web pages, we use two types of pages: table-of-contents pages and content pages.

A table-of-contents page presents the user with a simple list of hyperlinks. Such a list allows a reader to visit all web pages systematically. We group list items into sections and add section headlines. We place important items at the top of the list, even if that violates a more logical ordering of the items. Finally, a bar of hyperlinks at the top of the page offers short cuts to frequently visited links.

Furthermore, we accompany every hyperlink with a descriptive sentence. Such an annotation helps a reader to decide if he wants to commit to a possibly lengthy down-load. In the case of unusual files, we add the size and the format of the file. For example, a compressed (gzip) postscript figure of 12 K-Bytes may carry a hyperlink, such as Great Paper (ps.gz 12K).

To facilitate quick access and uniform organization, we consistently place every item's hyperlink at the beginning of its annotating sentence. The link itself is a descriptive short phrase. We follow the recommendations of Ian S. Graham 1996 and strictly avoid long phrases for hyperlinks or unstructured paragraphs with scattered hyperlinks.


previous up next print clean
Next: Content pages Up: WEB PAGE STYLE Previous: Fat, Functional, and Fast
Stanford Exploration Project
11/11/1997