Hello all. I'm a newbie, first time poster. I'm in the process of planning my website. I've read a lot on html, css, planning, organizing, etc, but I have never read anything about (forgive me but I don't know what they're called, so I'll do my best to explain) HOW to design a page of, say, text. What I mean by design is actually the do's and don't's of a page. For example, "a page should not be more than [enter the appropriate form of measure] long (vertical/horizontal)," "an article should not extend beyond X number of pages," etc. Things of that nature. What a page should specifically look like. What is this called? Is this "architecture" or what? Where can I read more about THAT? Books, websites, etc? I would appreciate any help on that. Thanks.

Sounds like a mixture of content strategy and typography.

What I mean by design is actually the do's and don't's of a page. For example, "a page should not be more than [enter the appropriate form of measure] long (vertical/horizontal)," "an article should not extend beyond X number of pages," etc. Things of that nature. What a page should specifically look like. What is this called? Is this "architecture" or what? Where can I read more about THAT? Books, websites, etc? I would appreciate any help on that. Thanks.

A page should be laid out in the way that best presents your message. There aren't any "rules" of how a page should look, because your site should be about the most effective way to communicate whatever it is you have to present. For example, youtube looks very different to the guardian site, precisely for this reason.

There are plenty of guidelines, however. The words you choose and how you present them are critical to how your prospects respond. Some web pages will perform brilliantly with 250 words, some will require 2,500 words to be at their most effective.

As for article pagination, the answer is "whatever makes the article easiest to read". Personally, I hate pagination of articles; I want the whole thing on a single page.

 

Sounds to me like you need to look into marketing, advertising, copywriting and graphic design. Unfortunately you'll see a lot of nonsense in the parts of the web that web designers inhabit because it attracts a large number of people who haven't bothered to find out any of the important stuff, and think that being able to make pretty graphics is all you need to do.

 

Is there a name for what you want to learn? Yes, I say it's 'design'. Proper design, not pixel-jockeying. Remarkably, it's not so easy to find proper design material on the net. Most of it's focused on technical tricks and software tutorials rather than solid design principles.

 

You'll find a few good links by browsing a little deeper into this forum. Good luck with it.

Edited June 5, 201214 yr by notbanksy