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Schedule

Intro

Topic:

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Project Guidelines

Index

Distinguish Links:

You know you are reading hypertext on the web when you come across the colorful, underlined links in the middle of text and know you can pursue an idea by clicking on it. (By the way, the blue and underlined words on this page are not real links, only dummies for illustration.) However, when a web author gets really enthusiastic and starts to add one link, another, and keeps sprinkling them like salt throughout the paragraph it can be confusing and actually disrupts the flow of thought.

Consider this advice taken from the Developer Zone's 10 Tips:

Did you know that the average human mind sees five or fewer items as one group, but when it encounters more than five items it has to divide them into smaller sub-groups to process them? It makes sense, then, to try to keep your selections arranged in groups of five or less. That makes it easier for your readers to quickly see the options and select one.

If you have several links, consider organizing them into a list rather than just sprinkling them throughout your text. This makes the options more clear and does not distract from your idea.

If you have several links in a line you must be sure to have some non-link character (not just a space) in between the links. Browsers do not add space well and may display all your links mushed together. Where does one link end and the other begin? You do not want to see:

Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link 4 Link 5

Often designers use the vertical line | (the character on the keyboard that is the upper case of the back-slash). Then you see:

Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4 | Link 5

Or designers enclose the link in brackets. Then you see

[Link 1] [ [Link 2] [Link 3] [Link 4] [Link 5]

Where to Open the Link?

Usually when your audience clicks on a link, the new page will open in the same window they were reading. The new material replaces the old. However, you can have the linked page open in a new window by adding a target to the code. For example, see what happens when you follow this link to Readings compared to using the link for "Readings" below Once at the site opened by the link in this text, you must close its window to get back to this page. If you use the link below you can just use the "back" to return. The code for the link in the text is
<a href=read.htm#unit5 target="blank"> Readings</a> That added "target=blank" opens the new window. However, do not open new windows unless it serves a purpose. Having several windows open at once can annoy or confuse your audience.

Continue to "Titles for Links">>

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