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You've looked around the Web a bit and know what others are doing with their pages, and you have an idea of what you want your page to do, but now it's time to solidify that idea into a more concrete plan.
To help formulate that plan, answer the following as best you can now; revisit your response from time to time as your Web page evolves. You can consult the resulting design for your page as you write your HTML.
The question: Why are you building a Web page?
Is it for fun, for profit, for some of both? The most important thing you need to know about your page is what you want it to do for you. Everything else about your page, from the way it looks to the information and HTML you use to build it, grows out of that one idea.
For example, if you decide to build a Web version of your résumé to give to potential employers or to help drum up some consulting business, you can make some good assumptions about how that page should look and decide what information absolutely must be on it:
- The design should be professional.
- Graphics won't play a large role because the meat of the page should be your work history and other relevant information.
- You will use a combination of headings, paragraphs, lists, and other text elements to build the page.
- The page may link to the Web sites of companies you've worked on in the past.
- You might want to include downloadable versions of your résumé in text, PDF, or Microsoft Word format for easy printing.
Although you may decide to expand your résumé page later into a site that includes examples of your work or references, initially your presence will be just a single page.
If, however, you're planning to put together a digital scrapbook that chronicles your growing family's adventures, you will make a completely different set of assumptions, such as these:
- The design can be fun, playful, and a reflection of your family's personality.
- Graphics, digital video, and even audio clips will play a significant role in the site because images are what digital scrapbook is all about.
- The markup you use may very well run the entire HTML gamut because your page will include everything from text to images to media.
- You may want to link to other family members' Web sites, to your kid's favorite toy stores, or to maps that show the places you visited on vacation.
- You might want to set up a family mailing list or a guest book so visitors to your site can play an active role in the site.
Your site may begin with a single page, but chances are it will rapidly grow into an entire Web site.
When you lay out the assumptions for your page along the same general lines shown here, you catch a glimpse of how your page will evolve from an idea to a Web creation — and what it will take to get you there.
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