Designing the end links of a Web page

When you are reading a book, and you get to the end of a page, you turn the page without thinking. On the Web, however, there is no obvious next place to go, so the designer of a page must give the reader some choice.

Here are some ideas based on the author's design of this help system. These are only suggestions, and your own work may have very different needs.

• Place a horizontal rule (<hr>) to set off the body of the page from the end links.
• Use a ``Next'' link when the material is strongly sequential. See Using ``Next'' links.
• Provide ``See also'' links for other probable destinations. See Using ``See also'' links.
• Use a ``Previous'' link to allow backwards browsing. See Using ``Previous'' links.
• You will probably want to provide other options as well. See Adding other end links.

Note---It is a good idea to make the text of a hyperlink the same as the title of the page where that link goes. If the page title does not resemble the link text, the reader may wonder if they went to the right place.

Last updated: 1995/12/19 18:39:54 UT
URL: http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/html/endlinks.html