This paper describes the design of a Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) World Wide Web site to act as a living documents repository for university accreditation. Topics addressed include: instructional design and development of a functional flowchart; interface design; and interactive elements, including bulletin boards and…

The usability test team examined design problems that limit the ability of instructors at the Indiana University to use data entry forms on the School of Education Web site. The forms permit instructors to publish information about themselves and about courses they teach on the School of Education Web site. Faculty and graduate student instructors…

Offers practical advice for designing documents for the World Wide Web. Suggestions cover page content such as titles, dates, legal notices, and methods for feedback; use of graphics; text styles and contrasts; creating and monitoring hyperlinks; size and length of pages; and use of audio and video. Contains 10 references. (BEW)

Examines special-purpose entry points to library Web sites. Discusses in-house homepages; branch-specific pages or single library system-wide pages; staff use pages; versions in different languages; "MyLibrary" pages where users can customize the menu; standalone "branded" sites; publicly accessible pages; and best practices.…

This book is a guide for educators on planning an educational World Wide Web site. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Why Create School & Educational Web Sites?" including community connections, partnerships with parents, linking to learners and learning, and engaging educators; (2) "How To Get from Idea to Web Site:…

This paper discusses the need for and the design requirements of generic chatroom software that is readily configurable to particular domains and that is also extensible. The architecture of a client/server chatroom generation system, ChatterBox, implemented in Java, is presented. The following components of ChatterBox are described: (1) the basic…

This paper presents a research project conducted by the Department of Information Science in cooperation with the Saarland Museum, the art museum of the Federal State of Saarland, Germany. The study had two aims. The first was to evaluate some methods of usability engineering for the Web, and the second was to evaluate the usability of the…

Findings from a study of users' multitasking searches on Web search engines include: multitasking searches are a noticeable user behavior; multitasking search sessions are longer than regular search sessions in terms of queries per session and duration; both Excite and AlltheWeb.com users search for about three topics per multitasking session and…

Provides suggestions to institutions of higher education that are developing or enhancing World Wide Web sites for use in student recruitment. Explains basic concepts and offers tips from prospective students. Examples are provided from the University of Colorado, University at Buffalo (New York), and Gettsyburg College (Pennsylvania). (DB)

Presents tips on how to create instructional Web sites with accessibility in mind and how to easily check existing sites for accessibility, based on a study of inaccessible Web-based components at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Provides a list of Web sites focusing on accessibility. (AEF)

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between cultural differences and the design of personal Web pages. The research questions were: (1) What differences can be detected between how American and Chinese students employ symbol systems in their personal Web pages? (2) What differences can be detected between American and…

This paper presents an academic World Wide Web authoring tool called AutoHTML. This tool, a work in progress, is designed to allow the novice user the ability to construct high level Web pages with a consistent look and feel. The system works with a standard Web browser without the addition of component plug-ins. Additional HTML meta-tags are…

A review of college and university library home pages concluded that many higher education home pages are badly designed, difficult to navigate, and a poor reflection on the institution. The most common shortcoming was the tendency to create too many links or overly large graphics. An appendix lists points to consider when constructing a home…

Discusses the basic technical concepts of using graphics in World Wide Web pages, including: color depth and dithering, dots-per-inch, image size, file types, Graphics Interchange Formats (GIFs), Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), format, and software recommendations. (AEF)

Discusses online resources that focus on what not to do in Web page design. "Don'ts" include: making any of the top 10 mistakes identified by Nielsen, qualifying for a "muddie" award for bad Web sites, forgetting to listen to users, and forgetting accessibility. A sidebar lists the Web site addresses for the nine resources…