Kinsner: Site Design

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Site Design

SITE DESIGN DESCRIPTION

Navigation must be EASY

This collection of pages uses very simple hierarchical-tree navigation rules to achieve the fundmental goal of learning from the Web, without losing the usual excitement of discovery and without getting lost.

A visual representation of this page design rules

What is a tree?

In general, a tree has nodes (representing pages) and branches (links) between the nodes. A higher-level node is called a parent, and the descendant (lower-level) nodes are called children. A parent has at least one child. The highest-level node in the tree is called the root (homepage). The lowest nodes are called leaves.

How do the nodes communicate?

Parents can communicate with their children, as well as the children can communicate with their parents. However, communication between children is discouraged. The only exception to this regimented communication through parents is when the children are very closely related, as it is in successive pages of a book (that is, page 11 is followed by page 12).

A child can visit its grandparent or great-grandparents in direct descendence, as shown by the thick blue line (path). The path is always visible to any child, so there is no confusion about their ancestors.

Why would we like to limit their freedom of movement?

This approach can increse learning from parents who (usually) have a bigger picture of the reality below them. It also diminishes chances of being lost in the tree. If a child is allowed to jump to any node, the sense of beloning to a system vanishes very quickly.

Can the tree grow indefinitely?

Yes, if you allow it to happen. To know ALL your ancestor may be a bit too much, indeed. One could get lost in the tree again.

As in nature, the span of a tree is also limited to a few generations. In fact, we limit the number of layaers to below seven.

How does the tree fit into the Internet?

Consider your tree as a part of an Internet forest or, preferably, an Inernet orchard. The root is connected to a nurturing soil, the Web itself (see the dotted lines in the diagram).

For the tree to survive, there must be at least one link to your root. If your tree has great fruit, they will come...

Can I leave the tree for any other place on the Internet?

YES! That is the whole idea behind Internet: freedom from any boundaries! You can return to the tree by using the browser's navigational tools (BACK).

Are these rules cast in stone?

NO! Nobody casts anything on the Internet. In fact, Internet is the first system ever implemented, without any central authority. So far, no anarchy has emerged.

Are there any examples of such trees?

Since this hierarchical-tree-structure approach is simple, safe, and produces easy-to-maintain pages, this design has been handcrafted by W. Kinsner into the following sites (as of October 6, 1999)

APEGM
(Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of the Province of Manitoba)
<http://www.apegm.mb.ca/>
SIZE: 1,393 items, 6.436 MB code, 29.3 in disk
Manitoba Education and Training
<http://www.gov.mb.ca/educate/>
SIZE: 1,070 items, 8.815 MB code, 25.8 in disk
Switching & Automata Theory course
<http://www.ee.umanitoba.ca/programs/undergrad/c24422/>
SIZE: 171 items, 8.515 MB code, 10.2 in disk
Microprocessor Interfacing course
<http://www.ee.umanitoba.ca/programs/undergrad/c24424/>
SIZE: 158 items, 4.275 MB code, 6.2 in disk
Graduate Student Conference, Gradcon'98 and Gradcon'99
<http://www.ee.umanitoba.ca/~gradcon/>
SIZE: 237 items, 5.440 MB code, 8.4 in disk
My Personal Site
<http://www.ee.umanitoba.ca/~kinsner/>
SIZE: 213 items, 4.887 MB code, 7.9 in disk
(this site)

Thanks for the visit. Your suggestions and questions are always welcome (v.1.68)