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Web Strategy for Everyone

by Marcus Österberg

Web Strategy for Everyone is a book by Marcus Österberg about building a website that lasts – architecture, design, performance and how to evaluate the result. The book is free to read here and to download. It has a free licence.

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Contents

  1. Before we begin
    1. Why you should read this book
    2. About me
  2. The Web's history and future
    1. Web 1.0 - a network of documents
    2. Characteristics of Web 1.0
    3. Web design 1.0
    4. Web 2.0 - the engaging web
    5. Characteristics of Web 2.0
    6. Web design 2.0
    7. Web 3.0 - a network of data (also known as the semantic web)
    8. Characteristics of Web 3.0
    9. Web design 3.0
  3. Information architecture
    1. Content choreography
    2. Examples of poor content choreography
    3. Master Data Management prevents unnecessary duplication
    4. The importance of marking up information with metadata
    5. Metadata specification makes your data more standardized and interchangeable
    6. Controlled vocabulary
    7. Folksonomy
    8. Architecture using APIs and open data
    9. Public APIs, open data and the PSI Act
    10. Background to the European Union’s PSI Act
    11. Some take issue with the PSI Act - cumbersome access to data
    12. What then is open data?
    13. The benefits of an API for a startup business or when building anew
    14. Design a public API with the developers’ experience in mind
    15. Friendly terms and a free license
    16. No surprising the developers with unforeseen breaking changes
    17. Provide data in the expected format and in suitable bundles
    18. Error handling and dimensioning of the service
    19. Provide code samples and showcase success stories
    20. Promote via data markets and API directories
    21. What is the quality of data needed?
    22. Microdata - semantically defined content
    23. So, what is the problem?
    24. The potential of semantic information
    25. Microdata standards such as Schema.org and Microformats
    26. Digital Asset Management (and Adaptive Content)
    27. Adaptive Content
    28. Image and media banks in your publishing system
    29. Personalization of information
    30. URL strategy for dummies
    31. Common excuses for breaking established URLs
    32. Ok, how to then?
  4. Web design
    1. Gov.uk design principles
    2. 1. Start with needs
    3. 2. Do less
    4. 3. Design with data
    5. 4. Do the hard work to make it simple
    6. 5. Iterate. Then iterate again.
    7. 6. Build for inclusion
    8. 7. Understand context
    9. 8. Build digital services, not websites
    10. 9. Be consistent, not uniform
    11. 10. Make things open: it makes things better
    12. Keep it simple, stupid - KISS
    13. Do not break the web
    14. Persuasive web designs (PWD) - design that convinces
    15. 1. Be clear in everything
    16. 2. Be very careful of what is the default setting
    17. 3. Visual hierarchy is important
    18. 4. Focus on the common goal you and your visitor have
    19. 5. Try not to overexert your users’ attention
    20. Responsive web design
    21. The mobile moment
    22. The elements of responsive web design
    23. Arguments for responsive web design
    24. Notes on responsive construction
    25. Responsive typography
    26. RESS - Responsive Server Side
    27. Adaptive web design
    28. Design with data - a data first-approach
    29. Get started with design with data
    30. What you know about your visitors
    31. Continuous A / B testing
    32. Examples of A / B tests for monitoring the website, and other communications
    33. Mobile first
    34. Mobile first vs. responsive web
    35. The mobile opportunity
    36. Mobile restrictions
    37. The mobile moment - when mobile users are in the majority
    38. SPA - Single Page Application
    39. Design of SPA websites
    40. Challenges of SPA
    41. Web standards, and usability
    42. Progressive enhancement and graceful degradation
    43. Usability vs. accessibility
    44. Gamified design
    45. Design and plan for errors that will occur
    46. Your website is a magazine, not a book!
  5. Web performance
    1. Planning for the unplanned
    2. Performance optimization of databases, web servers and content management systems
    3. General troubleshooting
    4. Planning for high load - use cache!
    5. Content Networks (CDN - Content Delivery Network)
    6. Databases
    7. Web servers, content management, own source code and external dependencies
    8. Measuring and improving interface performance from the user’s perspective
    9. Helpful tools
    10. Editorial performance impact
    11. Technical settings for performance
    12. Recoup an investment in web performance - is it possible?
  6. Test your own website
    1. How to document your test
    2. 1. SEO
    3. 1.1 Indexable for search engines
    4. 1.2 Duplicate content
    5. 1.3 Page title’s length is under 60 characters
    6. 1.4 Page title is readable and understandable in the search engine results page
    7. 1.5 Page title contains relevant keywords that describe the page
    8. 1.6 Correct headings are used
    9. 1.7 Search engine friendly URLs
    10. 1.8 Descriptive text on all important pages
    11. 1.9 Reasonable number of links
    12. 1.10 Pictures have alternative texts
    13. 1.11 Structured description of the information
    14. 2. Web analytics
    15. 2.1 Current visitor tracking scripts
    16. 2.2 Tracks the use of website search
    17. 3. Performance
    18. 3.1 Reasonable time for loading the page
    19. 3.2 Compression of text files
    20. 3.3 Usage of the browser cache
    21. 3.4 Scripts and style sheets are sent in a compact format
    22. 3.5 Images are optimized for fast transfer
    23. 3.6 Reasonable number of background images, scripts and stylesheets
    24. 3.7 Requesting files and pages that do not exist
    25. 3.8 Minimal amount of scripts and CSS in page code
    26. 3.9 Images are not scaled down using CSS or HTML
    27. 3.10 Identical files are not referenced
    28. 3.11 Reasonable amount of scripts in the page head
    29. 3.12 Content networks are used when necessary
    30. 4. Accessibility and Usability
    31. 4.1 Website validates the chosen code standard
    32. 4.2 Using correct header structure
    33. 4.3 Anchor-texts are descriptive
    34. 4.4 Link titles not used for non-essential information
    35. 4.5 Favorite icon is present
    36. 4.6 Possible to navigate with keyboard
    37. 4.7 Texts are written to be read by a human - not with exaggerated SEO
    38. 4.8 Language set in the source code
    39. 4.9 Not depending on browser features
    40. 4.10 Specifies image sizes in HTML
    41. 4.11 Works with and without the www prefix
    42. 4.12 Only one domain is used for the website
    43. 4.13 RSS subscriptions can be detected
    44. 14.4 Useful error pages
    45. 4.15 No surprises when scrolling
    46. 4.16 Enough distance between links, buttons, etc.
    47. 4:17 Acceptable text size
    48. 4.18 Zoomable, also on mobile
    49. 4:19 Icons for the website
    50. 4:20 Useable printouts
    51. 5. Others
    52. 5.1 Forms and other sensitive information is sent through a secure channel
  7. Tips, sources and thanks
    1. Tips on in-depth reading
    2. Sources & references
    3. Thanks goes out to…