Patterns for Personal Web Sites

These patterns for creating personal Web sites have been distilled over the last few years from the most interesting personal Web sites I've found. For more information on these patterns, please read the introduction.

These patterns were last revised in July of 2003. For a summary of changes, see the revision history.

The patterns are grouped by subject:

1. Content
2. Structure
3. Time
4. Navigation
5. Technology

---

Content Patterns

Content patterns focus on what your site contains.

• Deep Content
• Diverse Content
• Gift To The Community
• Your Own Voice

---

Structural Patterns

Structural patterns describe three levels of organization: the site, individual pages, and links.

Site structure

• Useful Home Page
• Index Pages
• History Page
• Default Pages
• Private Entrance
• Cover Page
• Secret Garden

Page structure

• Consistent Format
• Standard Header And Footer
• Link To Maintainer
• Appropriate Length
• Necessary Images

Links: the three Rs

• Recognizable Links
• Readable Links
• Relative Links

---

Temporal Patterns

Temporal patterns guide how your site changes over time.

• Living Site
• Incremental Growth
• Freshness Dates
• Unchanging Urls

---

Navigation Patterns

Navigation patterns provide guidelines for designing site navigation.

• Entrances Everywhere
• Visible Location
• One Jump Home
• Three Jump Maximum
• Site Map
• Related Pages
• Guessable Urls

---

Technology Patterns

Use technology patterns to make your site more useful, not less.

• Open To All
• Appropriate Format
• Valid Markup
• Graceful Failure
• Downloadable Weblet
• Offline Readability