Stamp Column Archives

The Glassine Surfer Column Archive

This column originally appeared in the American Philatelic Society's monthly magazine, "The American Philatelist." Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

June 2003

One tip with font size and CSS: use percentages. Swanky designers love to control everything on a website including how small the font is, but many people complain that they can't make the text bigger on their computers. That's usually because the CSS command is coding the text for a specific size, like 10 pixels or 12 point. Then when the user selects "Larger" in the browser's text-size dialogue, nothing happens. By using percents, the user will get the text his or her eyes can read, and after all, it is all about the user, isn't it?

Learning CSS is as easy as learning html, and working with CSS makes all html much much easier.

If time is not of the essence, get your feet wet with CSS and SSI. Be sure to check if your web hosting program supports SSI. Some don't and some do.

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Design by Sight

The best designs are those that make sense to your users and are easy to maintain. With that in mind, sit back and think about what large Websites you visit everyday. They're probably ones that everyone else knows too, and their design should give you a starting point for yours.

You'll see that html-wise, everything is a <table>, which creates rectangular fields on the webpage for pictures and text. Take amazon.com for example. The part the runs across the top from edge to edge is one table, and then on the bottom of the page is another table, coded for 100% of the width of the page.

Between these top and bottom tables, Amazon has one other table, crammed with more text, which is divided into three different cells side-by-side. The left-hand cell (what looks like a column on the page) is for the site’s navigation and doesn't change, and the center cell is the page's unique content and material, while the right-hand cell is more or less tailored to the user. The right cell on most other sites is for advertising and promotion.

In a simple site, the wide tables on top and bottom, as well as the left and right cells in the middle would be coded for SSI's. Your authoring software will take care of those tables for you, but be sure it will save your design as a template so you can use the same layout for all your pages.

The one harsh rule of design seems to be to build a consistent look and feel throughout your site. Otherwise, it's like moving from a penthouse, to a tepee, to a raised ranch, as you click from page to page. On the other hand, if your architecture and stamps website actually shows a split-level, then that's ok.

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Taxonomy, or tax-on-you?

The organization of pages on a website is called the taxonomy, and is where things begin. The tax is the flow chart of the site and determines how your navigation will work. Basic “tax” includes those pages sometimes called "about, contact, links, what's new, news" and whatever else the club likes. Most topical sites have links and articles about the subject of their topicals, as well as philatelic material.

The trick with navigation is to second-guess what someone at one page of your website wants to see next, which is the reason for those drop-down menus on big commercial websites, i.e. if you put your mouse on "sports" the drop-down shows baseball, football, etc.

Spend time thinking what's necessary for your site, and then get some input from others, while you continue to checking on what some other good stamp club websites have done.

There are many well-designed stamp club websites that offer examples of good navigation, design and content, but here’s a list of some for handy reference.

US Stamp Clubs
http://www.glassinesurfer.com/d/b_clubs_us.shtml

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A rose is a roze?

Of course, your new site will need an address, a URL (universal resource locator), which in all likelihood should be the name of your club, but remember that it's something people will have to either remember, write, or type into their browser's address box all the time, so shorthand is ok.

Though the Captain Cook Society is "captaincooksociety.com," APS is "stamps.com" because something called APS operates electrical plants in Arizona and aps.org is the American Physical Society.

The rule of thumb for choosing a name would be to try to use the name that members use to refer to the club, though try not to be too "inside" and call your site "stampsandbeer.org.”

Most domain name registration sites, ask you for your desired URL and then tell you if it’s available or not with a simple yes or no. The website below shows availability for many more extensions and suggests alternatives.

Register.com
http://www.register.com

And you’re not obligated to register with any particular domain name registration site while your checking for availablity.

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Kitchen Recipe

When it comes to the question of how many cooks should the club site have, it’d defer to the old cliche, which I’ve already alluded to here. The Webmaster should sketch out the layout on a piece of paper, list the taxonomy on another, and ask for additions and changes. Naturally, they’ll be things you never considered, but if you’ve working on the long term maintenance questions, you won’t gasp when all of the great suggestions come rolling in.

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Glassine Surfer

The Glassine Surfer archive is online along with other stories, help, and links to stamp collecting sites. We also host the Sociable Stamp Society chats online on Sunday and Wednesday evenings at eight o’clock eastern. Just click on “chat.”

The Glassine Surfer
http://www.glassinesurfer.com

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