Once past the front door: Leo Robert Klein explains how to avoid second-tier page disasters. (Your web site: creating top-of-the-line design).

Have you ever visited a web site where the homepage is well laid out, but the pages lower down in the hierarchy are nothing but a confusing mess? What went wrong? We'll look at why this sometimes happens and the steps you can take to avoid it.

A growing consensus

People talk about a growing homogenization of web page design. Conventions have been set: navigation is on the top and side. A link to the homepage is in the top-left corner. Such inconsistency allows people to become instantly comfortable with new sites.

In the library world, we're increasingly seeing similar conventions develop. I remember the first site I ever worked on. It had only four categories: "Library Information," "Research Resources," "What's New," and a link to the telnet version of the library's catalog. Considering the variety of materials that library users are likely to need, this library-centric arrangement is certainly limiting. But a lot has happened since then.

Using their language

Today, a library homepage that doesn't, sport the obligatory "Books" or "Journal Articles" link is pretty unusual. Increasingly, librarians have looked at what their public wants and are transforming their homepages with the terms users themselves employ. It explains why links to renewal and reserve, library hours, and much more are popping up directly on homepages nationwide. It explains why services are being broken down not according to administrative unit (old school) but by bite-sized morsels that the public is likely to ask for. It explains the freshness and color successful sites feature to appear more user-friendly and service-oriented.

This didn't happen overnight. The path from "Library Information" and "Research Resources" to "Books," "Articles," and "Renewal" is littered with the remains of a thousand arguments over what exactly the library should be doing with its online presence, for whom, and in what way.

That's why we should give the utmost credit to a library web site that's managed to get its homepage in order. It's a sign of both an understanding of users and a terrific …