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Website Development & Hosting

Realities

Constructing a website, whether for an organisation or for an individual, is a lot like constructing

a house. Your first thoughts should not be of buying the nails, the wood and the tools, or telling

your friends the new address. There are more important things to think about first. What kind of

a house would you like? Is it appropriate to your lifestyle? Can you afford to maintain it? Does it

fit  in  with  the  neighbourhood?  Are  there  zoning  regulations  to  consider?  Will  you  need  help

building it?

In terms of a website, the questions you should ask yourself are similar.

Before beginning, accept two basic realities:

a

Except  for  pages  whose  access  are  restricted  through  appropriate  authentication  and

authorisation procedures (such as usernames and passwords), you have no control over

the way in which users will proceed through your website. 

a

You  have  no  control over  the  way  in  which  your  page  will  appear  in  every  kind  of

application, browser, or computer that may be used to view your site. 

If you can truly accept these realities, you will spend far more time on the content, functionality

and usefulness of your site, and far less time worrying about constructing a perfectly designed,

beautiful site.

Contents

a

This is probably the single most important decision to make. It has an impact on design,

on links, on content, and even on site maintenance. 

a

If you are putting up institutional or organisational information, are you the source of that

information? Most institutions and organisations have particular departments or units that

are  responsible  for  the  currency  and  accuracy  of  particular  pieces  of  information.  You

should not usurp their authority by adding your own version to your web page. Instead, you

should link to the authoritative source, after receiving any necessary permissions. 

a

If you have volumes of text with few or no links, you need to put it on a gopher or ftp site,

or link your site to a database of information. Web-based organisation is non-linear, and

non-hierarchical.  Structure  of  the  information  should  be  based  on  standards  and  on  a

thorough  knowledge  of  how  automated  robots,  wanderers  and  spiders  index  web-based

information and sites. 

a

Just  as  libraries  may  have  several  editions  of  the  same  book  and  indicate  in  their

catalogues  when  new  items  are  on  order,  you  may  want  a  spot  on  your  site  for

archived materials (older versions of information or older items) and an indication

that future items are expected.

a

There is nothing less conducive to return visits than a dead-end site. Self-contained sites

are often nothing more than advertisements or elaborate brochures; once you have seen

them, you don t bother with them again. 

Copyright  NESIS 2002

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