Writing Web Pages that Work

When charged with writing web pages, your challenges are more complex than those your paper predecessors faced. In the physical presence of a printed document, people have options. They can thumb through, visually acquaint themselves with the structure, scan and look for key words and overcome deficiencies left by the creator. Viewing information on a computer limits how people can interact with it. These limits and any deficiencies are either amplified or minimized by the creator, i.e., the writer makes it easy or hard for people to interact with the information by the way the information is designed, loaded, structured, sorted, linked and by its length. Writing web pages that work takes thought and planning.

Just as a skilled craftsman knows when and how to use a tool, the information craftsman should know when and how to use web pages to deliver content. Simply placing information on a web page does not make it usable and in some cases may actually be the wrong medium. The web page crafter must think through the audience needs and the purpose of the information before deciding on the presentation. The following are conditions under which a web page offers advantages over other medium:

· Audience requires access flexibility
· Information is dynamic and time sensitive
· Audience is geographically dispersed
· Information requires frequent updating