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Designing content pages

Content pages provide content and should form the majority of a website. They are destination pages rather than pages that users pass through to reach information.

Content pages exist below the section homepages in the site map hierarchy, as shown in this content site map.

Content site map with content pages highlighted.

Navigation structure for content pages

The kind of navigation that appears on content pages depends on the navigation structure chosen for the section home pages. There are three different options.

Section navigation used to navigate a whole site or subsite

With some sites, such as masterbrand and faculty sites, the global navigation forms part of the web template and cannot be changed. As a result, sites and subsites sitting under these templates (for example, the Research at Monash subsite) can use section navigation for navigation around all the sections contained within the site. In effect, the section navigation acts as global navigation. Please note that section navigation should never appear on the site or subsite's home page (see Designing home pages).

The following figure shows a site with three sections. Each section home page includes section navigation that allows a user to access all other sections of the site. This section navigation also includes a link to the site's home page. All of the subsequent content pages will carry the same section navigation.

Content page with section navigation acting as global navigation.

Section navigation used to navigate around one section only

If the section home page doesn't use section navigation as global navigation, then the section navigation can be used to navigate around content pages that exist within that one section (rather than the whole site or subsite).

The decision of whether the content page needs to have this form of section navigation depends on the size of the sections and the amount of information they contain.

The following figure shows a site with three sections. Each section has its own home page and its own section navigation. Content pages within a particular section will use that section's navigation.

Content page with section navigation for that section.

No section navigation

If the size of a section is small and the section page doesn't use section navigation as global navigation then the content page does not need to include section navigation.

The following figure shows a site with three sections. Due to the small amount of content included in each section, it isn't necessary to include section navigation.

Content page with no section navigation.

 

See also