Some Principles of Web Composition and Design

Choices of design and structure should follow from the project's purpose and content.

• Spatial layout of a composition should have a direct correlation to its cognitive or logical organization
• component parts organized by overall design

Web Hypertext--not linear like print essays. Composer needs to decide how to split up ideas into components: sections and nodes within sections.

• Screen can be used as an organizational unit instead of the paragraph adn the page.
• Link text and annotations emphasize important information about their Author can't assume all readers will take one specific progression through the document.
• Graphics and text interact--graphics should enhance text and vice versa.
• Visual excitement of the "page" carries rhetorical impact, positive and negative.

Web audiences expect:

• graphics (some but not too much or too big)
• shorter units of information hypertextually linked
• a fluid composition that relies on interconnection of themes and ideas

Complex hypertexts:

• Sections linked together in a variety of possible paths allows the reader to go to other parts.
• Usually feature a repeated navigation table of contents

Composers can

• include relevant source materials
• suggest connections between ideas through links
• go on tangents without interrupting flow of main argument
• include playful elements while still achieving a serious purpose

Some dos and don'ts

DO:

• employ consistent navigation icons or lists for each section
• "compose and include a purpose or position statement for each major section of a hypertext to articulate the relevance of that section within the project as a whole and in terms of its relation to other nodes."
• put links in visible locations and make link text explain where it's pointing (especially to off-site locations)
• give clear options to the reader
• keep graphics small and relevant to the text through direct commentary
• use a menu or index on the side or as a footer.

• place menu in same location of each section and in same order every time: Ex. home|main claim and reasons|differences|similarities|possible interpretations|conclusions

• use tables to place graphics and text side by side and to place text on the screen
• consider how reader will react to backgrounds and text size/color/ contrast
• consider putting links to outside sites all in one place with annotations
• decide what the reader needs to read first before being allowed sketch out your design on paper with arrows for links (or use index cards)

DON'T:

• make the reader scroll down a long page
• insert large or irrelevant graphics and bells and whistles
• make a screen cluttered, confusing, or hard to read
• make off-site links without annotating where it goes and what the reader might find there
• mistake aesthetic design for analytical content or ignore aesthetic design. (Make them work together.)
• use "click here" as the link text