Web sites and web documents are important methods of conveying information. Creating effective web sites requires careful planning, drafting, and testing.

To plan effectively, you need to consider your audience. Determine who they are. Of course, on the Web they could be anyone in the world, but that's too broad. A helpful way to create a sense of your audience is to define a role for them, as if they were actors in your "Web play." Are they customers? students? curiosity surfers?

In addition to considering your audience, you need to plan a flow chart and a template. The flow chart is a device that indicates how you will link your material together.

Your template is a design of your site's look. It shows how you will place various kinds of information (title, text, links, visuals) so that your reader can easily grasp the sense of your site.

Web sites create special concerns for writing. Good web text is scannable (easy to find key ideas), correct (no spelling, grammar mistakes), and consistent (all items treated in a similar fashion).

Visuals must be legible, but not so large that they take up most of the screen or take a long time to load.

Web sites must be tested to make sure links work, visuals appear, and the site displays the same way in various browsers.