Having seen a lot of Web sites, my main consideration in creating the Grivel Website is: Keep It Simple. The purpose of the site is to share information, and its main content is textual. There should be no need for a lot of graphics or other flashy features.
On the other hand, I do want the Grivel Website to be distinctive. People should know, instinctively, where they are - and eventually hopefully feel at home. I decided on a basic green-and-yellow color scheme, where there is a green bar on the left and a light-yellow background for the rest of the page. Then there is the 'logo', the fancy capital letter 'G'. The text presentation is made consistent through the use of a 'style sheet.'
The navigation bar at the top of each page consists of two parts: the Area part (in large letters at the top), which take you to different areas in the site, and the Section part (in smaller letters below the area part), which navigates within an area. Rollover effects are my consession to flashyness; lines and boldface text in the navigation bar give feedback on the current location in the site.
The top navigation bar allows for a site hierarchy of two levels: the areas, and the sections in each area. Some sections however consist of more than a single page, effectively creating a third level of navigation. Although this third level is not made explicit in the navigation bar, it is always possible to click on the boldface section title to go back to the start of the section.
I have tried to make this site as easy as possible to read on different screen sizes. Large margins and custom paragraph settings help in the presentation of the information.
In order for this to display correctly, the Web browser should support style sheets - which means a version 4 Netscape or Internet Explorer browser. I have deliberately made this decision. The pre-version-4 browsers do not allow much control over the actual display of the page, like the margin settings that are important to enhance the readability. With an earlier Web browser, you will still be able to get all the information, but not necessarilly as nicely looking.
