Introduction	Audience	Limitations		Escaping Paper	Navigation Bar
Navigation Map	Virtual Includes	Audience-to-Author		Conclusion	Bibliography

Limitations and Legacy Considerations from Paper:

There are many limitations on the amount and type of documentation we can provide. Some are imposed by external conditions and others are self imposed as we determine how best to allocate resources. These limitations include: staff time, frequency of change, expense, audience needs, audience attention span, medium limitations, production tool limitations, and design principles.

Staff Time
The quantity, quality and timeliness of content is first subject to available staff time. The process of updating class reservation schedules, for instance, takes a fair amount of time and effort. While it would require an inordinate amount of staff time to update the posted schedules on a daily basis, the information would be rendered useless if it was only updated monthly. There is a balance point where the usefulness of documentation and the required staff-time become optimal.

Content, Graphic Design, Font
Contrary to popular practice, the web medium is not a "magic bullet" that frees the author from the duty of designing quality content. Elements of graphic design are a very important part of this. While the space on the page may have been the biggest factor limiting graphic design within traditional documents, bandwidth is the limiting factor for web based graphics. Since the content of a web page is often transmitted over phone lines of limited capacity, and received by computers of various performance levels, use of graphics must be limited. Also, even with fewer graphics on the page, those graphics must be compressed so that file size is minimized (Pirouz, 1997 p. 30).

While paper content and presentation are well within the control of the author, the web presents some real challenges. Html code is interpreted differently by different browsers and different hardware platforms. The size of the user's monitor is also an enormous factor. Layout can be controlled to some extent through the use of graphics in place of html code, but at the expense of bandwidth. Raymond Pirouz points out that:

each browser is unique in its interpretation of HTML code and its translation to visual imagery. Besides browser differences, your users may be viewing your site through Macs, PCs, Unix machines, or even the television. You have no 'total' conntrol (Pirouz, 1997 p. 22).

My strategy to bypass this limitation is to view completed pages through both Macs and PCs and with various minotor sizes. I also view them through the relatively fast campus network, and also from home over the phone lines. Although I can probably safely assume that my audience will be using a PC on the campus network, I optimize the pages for both PCs and Macs and for the more limited bandwidth provided by modem and phone lines. This means that the pages ought to load reasonable fast from off campus, and extremely fast on campus.

Finally, font - an integral consideration for any sort of document design, is both different and more difficult to control on the web. Jakob Neilsen discusses the paradox of font on the web:

Because of the low resolution of most computer screens, small text is more readable in sans-serif type faces such as Veranda... At the same time, most people prefer reading serif type [as is commonly used in print] (Nielsen, 1999 p. 126).

Nielsen goes on to suggets that the web designer should chose the font based on text size. He does not explore the other limitation, that various browsers and monitor sizes also limit the display of different fonts and relative sizes. My strategy has been to leave the font set to "default" rather than impose my interpretation of the best font on the user. Most current web browsers default to a 12 poin sans-serif and the common denominator among monitors is generally 800x600 resolution. Setting my main text to default size and type should provide a useable interface.