A Page Structure Pattern from
Patterns for Personal Web Sites
One of the great problems of the Web is that it's often hard to tell where one is. Did that link you jump take you to another page on the same site, albeit with a completely different design, or are you on another site? The only sure way to tell is by comparing URLs. The rule of thumb is: pages with the same format (layout, images, etc) are on the same site; pages with similar formats might be; pages with different formats probably aren't. Having a consistent format is a key element that identifies pages as being part of your site.
Therefore, maintain a consistent format across all of your site's pages.
Giving your site's page a consistent format has two major benefits:
It gives your site an instantly recognizable identity. If your site's logo always appears in the upper left corner of the browser window, then as soon as that logo appears in the window a visitor will recognize that the page is part of your site. The more elements that are common across pages, the greater the sense of identity: if the logo and navigation appear in familiar places, then the sense of identity is even stronger than if the only common element was just the logo.
It makes site navigation easier. Once a visitor knows where to look on one page for navigation, that knowledge transfers to all pages of your site. The more familiar the navigation, the easier it becomes to use.
Formats span a wide range of design. One site's format might use fancy CSS, tables, graphics, and interactive content. Another site might restrict itself to a minimal subset of HTML 2.0, eschewing images and using header elements as the primary page structure. Each of these formats is distinctive enough to be instantly recognizable. What's more important for consistency isn't what goes into a format, it's how consistently the format is used across the site.
There are several ways to give your site a consistent format:
Last updated 17 June 2002
http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/consistent.format.html
All contents ©2002 Mark L. Irons