Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Second Edition

Chapter 9. Page Layout

This chapter is the first of two chapters about design issues. It addresses designing and constructing layouts for web pages. Although there is no rule book that says how you should design your page, there are some important factors that you should consider regarding the appearance of a page, and it is these issues you'll learn about in this chapter.

No one can tell you how to make an attractive page—that is a matter of taste. What you will see in this chapter is a discussion about the aims of the site, the size of your page, what should appear on the page, and where each item should go on that page. You also need to know how to make these designs work in code. This chapter is broadly grouped into four sections to reflect these topics:

• Understanding the aims of the site correctly

• Looking at a page as a whole and addressing the question of how big you should make the page

• Knowing the elements that make up each page such as logos, headings, links, and possibly ads

• Positioning the various elements within the page

Once you have looked at the overall layout of the page in this chapter, see Chapter 10 for some more specific issues of design within the page, such as design of menus, forms, links, and text.

Understanding the Site

Whether you are going to create a web site for yourself or are hoping to create sites for clients, you must have a good understanding of the site you want to create before you can start designing it. There are some fundamental questions you need ...