Modelling And Implementing Macro Web Navigation Structures

From the three existing dimensions content objects, navigation and presentation of web pages, the navigation dimension is analysed. It consists of macro, meso and micro navigation. A conceptual approach to model and implement the macro navigation structure of web sites is presented. We start by enhancing a function decomposition diagram to model the macro navigation structure. The resulting graph is analysed and transformed to find its crucial components. In order to store these components in a database table, an appropriate entity-relationship model is developed. Afterwards we identify three navigation styles that can be produced from the underlying database and give the PHP source code for one of them. Finally, an example web page using our navigation styles is depicted. It is concluded that using our ideas may lead to reduced development time and avoids link errors in the process of creating the site navigation.