Building and organizing an attractive and effective web site doesn't always need to be a complex task. In some cases, you can effectively present a great deal of useful information on a single page, without a lot of flashy graphics. In fact, there are several advantages to a single-page site:
Figure 22.1 shows the first part of a web page that serves its intended audience better as a single lengthy page than it would as a multipage site. It contains about eight paper pages worth of text explaining how to participate in a popular email discussion list. Figure 22.1. A good table of contents can make a lengthy page easy to navigate.The page begins, as most introductory pages should, with a succinct explanation of what the page is about and who would want to read it. A detailed table of contents allows readers to skip directly to the reference material in which they are most interested. (Refer to Hour 6, "Creating Text Links," for a refresher on how to build a table of contents.) As Figure 22.2 shows, each short section of the page is followed by a link back up to the table of contents, so navigating around the page feels much the same as navigating around a multipage site. Because the contents of the page are intended as a handy reference, readers will definitely prefer the convenience of being able to bookmark or save a single page instead of 8 or 10 separate pages. Figure 22.2. Always provide a link to the table of contents after each section of a long web page.
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