Computer Articles
Web Design
Internet basics
Level 2

From the Outline to the Screen - Encouragement

The previous article explained the need to create a basic outline of your website before beginning your work.

If you haven’t made your outline yet, please do so now. Select something of value that you would like to share with others. It could be a pictorial description of your own family, or some special learning or knowledge that you possess. No matter who you are, you do have something to offer. Your unique experiences, background, and contacts combine to make you an exciting person in your own way. You might want to consult with some people who know you well in order to determine the special topic that you can offer others.

The Web, as you know, is today’s preferred method for disseminating information. It is easily and immediately accessible, and it bypasses the tribulations of the publishing and distribution networks.

Come back to this series of articles after your outline is completed.

Your completed outline is the basis for the website that we will prepare together, and it is your assurance that everything will be presented in a logical order. You may not realize the importance of this guideline at this stage. However, as you continue to work on your website, it will be more and more difficult to remember where you arranged specific pages. You will need to refer to your outline many times as you prepare, revise, and update your website. Each main level in your outline will represent another web page.

One page, the opening screen, is the opening welcome to your website. It should be attractive, with a bare minimal amount of information.

Yes, I know, you’ve seen many websites (usually called “portals”) that are chock full of information on the opening screen. Some people like that style.

I believe that the visitor to your website may be overwhelmed with too many options. If you want to build your website that way, go ahead, but that’s not going to be the method that will be demonstrated in this article.

More encouragement

Remember those outlines that you prepared in composition classes when you were young? You had Roman numerals, followed by letters, followed by numbers, followed by lower case letters, followed by numbers in parentheses, and so on. You organized the composition before you wrote it. True, today’s methods of teaching writing skills don't include outlining, so younger readers of this article may have to discuss this with their senior contacts.

You can start that outline now. Write down random topics that you want to include in your website, as they occur to you. This is called brainstorming. Push yourself to write as many ideas as you can. Put aside the list, then add to it the next day, and again the following day.

Group the completed the list of ideas. Each group will represent a connected series of pages on the website. Give each group a title, and we’re well on our way.

The next article in this series will begin to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of a particular website to use as our example.

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