Re: [WSG] Standards and site structuring

[John D Wells]

I think there's a need to strike some balance between following a 
"convention" far enough so that even a first-time visitor finds the 
navigation to be "familiar", and considering what the audience is and 
using words and phrases that are most appropriate. Or perhaps this 
makes better sense: follow the conventions of your audience.

I think "About Us", "Contact Us", "Home" etc are pretty dry, but there 
are many audiences out there that subscribe to dry, that speak dry.

"Colophon" on the other hand is not dry, but also not appropriate for 
every site audience. The blogging community is familiar with this term 
and knows that it translates to "About Me / About This Site", but it 
wouldn't fit much anywhere else.

My $.02
-John
On Feb 21, 2005, at 10:18 PM, Nick Lo wrote:
Ha ha, ok, welcome to the battle of the dictionaries. Yes I know it's 
not a formal standard as defined by any authority but it is a standard 
as established by it's common and accepted use.

Anyway my question was what are people's thoughts about this. For 
example; I've heard developers complain how brain dead it makes sites. 
To reign it in to the realm of standards based development; do any of 
you feel there is a strong case for site structure to follow at least 
some standards or ahem, convention?

Thanks,
Nick

Just out of interest what "standards" (in the sense of a generalised 
approach) are you all applying to site structuring?

There is a well known article (that I cannot remember the URL for) 
that discusses the fairly accepted standards for a site like; Home, 
Contact Us, About Us, News, etc. So I was curious how people here 
apply those kind of standards to their site structure and also what 
they feel about doing them for the sake of usability, etc.

Thanks,
Nick
These are more conventions than standards. It's good to follow if 
possible, but not necessary.
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