A browsing model

We kept saying that it was necessary to add a browsing menu to each page of a web site, but why and what should we put in that menu.

To start with, we'd like to draw your attention that we deliberately choose to represent this web site as a tree. If URL (or web links) allows us to organise our web site into any graph structure, usually Joe Bloggs will get lose in too complex structures.

Most of the time, you arrive at a web site through the Home Page. But it is not compulsory. Thanks to the search engine you actually come in through any page of the web site. We will call that page the 'Entry Page'. What is important about the Home Page is that you should be able to go to any page of a web site from its Home Page. The opposite is as much important. As we may arrive through any 'Entry Page', each of these entry page should propose a link to the home page, to explicit the context of the information.

In order to locate a page well, it is also interesting to link it both to its direct father : a table of content for instance and to some part of the site (that we called here "Chapter Home Page").

Depending on the size of a web site, The Home Page, The Chapter Home Page and the Up Page could be the same, but it is a good advice to not have more than 3 levels in a site hierarchy.

Those 3 links are all about vertical browsing. It is also important to take care of horizontal browsing.

The first thing we have learnt from books was turning over their pages even before we learnt how to read those pages. And when you read a book, you don't expect to have to go to the table of content each time you need to turn a page. Hypertext should make reading easiest and not the contrary. It is why websurfer should be provided with Natural Reading Browsing Links in the form of Next and Previous Page.