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Authoring and Design for the WWW
DESIGN CASE STUDIES
The Archaeology Adventure site
This site aims to offer the user two modes of use the
conventional enquiry-based approach of Web reference documents, and a
narrative approach slightly more akin to television. The low density of
information in the main frame is complemented by a wealth of background
detail available through the surrounding areas.
Permanent and topical information
The frame structure of the page allows information which
forms the core of each issue' to be presented centre-screen, and to be altered
independently of the supporting information around, much of which remains the
same, for example glossaries of terms and guidance on how to use the site.
Random access and guided tours
The difficulty of getting value out of hypertexts has often
been remarked on and is caused partly by the absence of any guidance as to
where users should go next. It is a clear problem of some kinds of resource-based
learning materials. This site offers a possible solution in providing a
ready-built guided tour of the material which the user can abandon at any time,
reverting to the more usual enquiry-based clicking, using the control panel
bottom-right.
Appropriate multimedia
Although the backbone of the site is HTML text, most of
its pages also contain other elements. In the screen illustrated, an animated GIF
is used to show an archaeological find from several angles in its discoverer's
hands, while other screens use similar techniques to demonstrate a computer
graphic reconstruction of a ruined building. These elements provide
entertainment value, and are also genuinely better at demonstrating a point than
text or a still graphic.
Voice, language and tense
Once again, the issue of language is important: in this case
a chatty informal style was adopted in the present tense to give a feeling that the
user was observing contemporaneous events rather than a record of
accomplished fact. The use of time and place information augments this feeling
of process rather than stasis, which is difficult to achieve in the largely inert
environment of the Web page, where generally nothing happens until the user
clicks something.
Contents
Graphics Multimedia
Virtual Environments Visualisation
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