First answer the following questions:

What are the purposes of your web site?
What content should you provide to meet your purpose?
How might this content best be organized?
How will you evaluate the effectiveness of your web site?

Determine and Organize the Content of Your Site (Information Design)

Identify the major themes and purposes desired for your site. Outline the content materials you plan to use to provide guidelines for the organization of both written content and the architecture of your web site. Determine how the content best fits with the organization and plan a structure to accommodate growth and change. Write the content materials and take photographs as needed or desired. Color slides or prints may be scanned for use on your site or obtained using a digital camera that can store photographs on diskettes.

Plan the Architecture and Graphic Design of Your Site

An outline of your content material will guide planning of the architecture and graphic design of your site. The graphic elements, page layouts, page titles, and navigation systems must all work together to create a significant site.

The home page is your most important page, since most users will see it first. Plan a simple and consistent design that will identify your home page and visually connect the rest of the pages to your site. Think of visual elements that already exist for your school - your school's colors, the school mascot, or some other recognizable scheme. Consider how colors will print in black as well as in color. Limit the use of large images, or have them download in a small size that can be enlarged. Use animated, moving images sparingly to draw attention to your pages.

The home page should identify the provider (your school or classroom) and provide simple instructions on navigating the site. On all other pages, continue the same colors and format, and provide the name, address, and phone number (or E-mail address) of a contact person. It's helpful to the user to include a photograph and content outline on the first page. You may also want to identify newly posted materials in a "What's New" section in the contents. Give a variety of ways to navigate through your site to provide user flexibility.

Evaluating Your Own Site

Evaluate your site before going online, using the criteria given within this document and through web sites such as WWW Cyberguide Ratings for Web Site Design and Evaluating Web Resources. Continue to evaluate and update your site after going online.

Publicize your web site to students, parents, and the community, and register your site with search engines for free. Distribute flyers and press releases with your school's web address and provide periodic updates. Locate other schools with web sites, make contacts, exchange materials, and acquire "key pals" (the web equivalent to pen pals).