Netskills Corner: Beneath The Surface of Your Web Pages

Netskills Corner: Beneath The Surface of Your Web Pages

In this Netskills Corner article, Brian Kelly looks beneath the surface of HTML pages and provides advice on the design of the underlying directory structure.

Pick up a book or read an article on HTML design and what will you find: advice on the use of graphics in Web pages, using tables and providing animation in your pages using technologies such as animated GIFs and client-pull or server-push, use of plug-in software, such as Shockwave, or programming environments such as Java and ActiveX.

There is, however, much more to the design of HTML pages than the appearance as seen by the end user. Of particular importance to the future maintenance of a large set of HTML pages is the underlying directory structure.

It is important to take care in the design of the directory structure used to store your HTML pages in order to ensure (a) that permissions to update areas can be delegated appropriately, (b) that directories will not have to be renamed or files moved, which will cause hypertext links to fail and (c) minimise the resources needed for future maintenance.

An Exercise

Rather than providing a set of guidelines, you may find it more useful to attempt a simple exercise in the design of a directory structure for a departmental information service.

You are responsible for managing the information needs of your department (a computing service). You have analysed the information flow in your department and arrived at the following list:

Staff List	Staff names, phones nos. etc.
Documents	Documents produced in your department. These are categorised as follows: Beginners' Guides Further Guides Facts Sheets Tutorial Workbooks A total of 150 documents are available. Documents are between 8 and 50 A4 sides.
Training Materials	Training materials for about 20 software packages. The training materials are produced using Powerpoint.
Newsletter	A newsletter, which is produced once a term (about 16 A4 sides).
Newsflash	A news sheet which is produced on a weekly basis. One or two sides of A4.
Software	A list of software for Unix and PC systems.
Clusters	Details of computer cluster areas on campus. Includes opening times, location, nos. of machines, etc.
Personnel Details	Staff reviews, promotion requests, etc.

Background

Note that the Information Officer is responsible for producing the Newsletter. The Information Assistant is responsible for producing the NewsFlash. The Training Officer is responsible for producing training materials. About 6 support staff are responsible for maintaining software information. The Admin Assistant is responsible for maintaining cluster information.

The Information Officer, Information Assistant and Training Officer are familiar with Word For Windows and HTML authoring. The Information Assistant only uses PCs, however, and is not familiar with editing on Unix systems. Some software support staff are familiar with Unix and PCs and HTML authoring, but others are reluctant to learn a new skill.

The Admin Assistant uses Microsoft Access to maintain the cluster database. The Admin Assistant is also responsible for the Personnel Details.

The Task

Produce a schematic drawing of the directory structure for the WWW pages for this departmental WWW service.
Identify names for the directories and files.
Identify links between the various directories.
Identify links which may be pointed to from other departments in the University.
Include details of the person responsible for the maintenance.
Make a summary of other issues which must be dealt with in order to ensure that you are responsible for a quality WWW service.

A Solution

A possible solution to the exercise is available.

Tips On The Design Of Your Directory Structure

Produce a paper design of your proposed directory structure before producing your HTML documents.
Review your paper design with your colleagues.
Agree on a naming convention for files and directories consisting of multiple words (e.g. use of hyphens [/docs/overview-guides], underscores [/docs/overview_guides] or capitalisation [/docs/overviewGuides]).
Agree on a convention for the capitalisation of files and directories.
Identify responsibilities for maintaining areas of your Web service and ensure that the directory structure reflects the responsibilities.
Discuss security issues with the system adminstrator of the WWW server.
Arrange a training session on the design of directory structures for your colleagues.

Farewell

This is the last Netskills Corner article to be written by Brian Kelly. From 1st November 1996 I will be working at UKOLN, University of Bath as the UK Web Focus Officer.

It's been hectic working for Netskills over the past year. I have delivered training courses and given presentations throughout the country (from Aberdeen to Surrey, taking in Belfast, Bradford, Brunel, Coleraine, Durham, Leeds, London, Loughborough, Manchester and Rutherford Labs). I was also fortunate enough to attend the WWW Conference in Paris in May. When not travelling I was involved in the development of Netskills training materials, in particular the HTML Authoring kit.

My new post is a challenging one, acting as a coordinator for the Web for the UK HE community, as well as managing the Information Services Group at UKOLN.

I'm looking forward to this new challenge. No doubt I will continue to contribute articles to Ariadne!

[Editorial comment: You are very right, there :-]

Material on this page is copyright Ariadne/original authors. This page last updated on September 11th 1996