A template can be defined as a representational HTML document. One template should be provided for each specific type of page on a Web site. For instance, there might be one template for each content level page. There could also be separate and distinct templates provided for feedback forms, tables of content, site maps, glossary files, or decision-support tools. A template contains common, non-variable elements, including top, side, or bottom navigation; corporate branding; and title and heading fonts, as defined in a stylesheet. It also includes areas where the author or designer has the freedom to include distinct content or graphical elements.

Here are six good reasons reasons to build your website using templates:

6. Consistency
A templated site will help guarantee a consistency of design elements. This is particularly important when a site is created by the decentralized departments within a corporation. One of the most frequent complaints about templates is that they might rob otherwise autonomous organizations of their creative "rights." Actually, the opposite is true. A well-designed template can create a framework for navigation and branding, yet still allow ample room for individuality. Once you no longer have to consider the basics of page layout, you can focus on the critical message you are trying to convey and how that can best be presented, and expend your energies at that more strategic level.

5. Ease and speed of maintenance
As corporations grow and change, the sites that describe them need to keep pace. Shifts in organizational structure, acquisitions, new or evolving markets, and other fundamental changes will all need to be reflected -- quickly -- in the corporate Internet or Intranet sites. Developing a site using consistently created templates makes locating and changing specific elements that much easier. Consistently coded HTML allows macros to be run on the material with relative assurance that the majority of instances will be caught and corrected. In the case of format changes, the consistent use of stylesheets means that changes are a matter of seconds, rather than many hours. (See the related article, "Here's Why They Call It Cascading" in our last issue for some pointers on the use of cascading style sheets.)

4. Speed of implementation
Once templates are created from the storyboard, a dedicated production team can efficiently and quickly take raw content and turn it into polished code. With a reliance on templates, production teams can produce hundreds of files in a short timeframe. Sites that need to be up "yesterday" require that template creation be complete and approved before actual implementation begins. This will prevent the costly rework that can occur if you make corrections to your templates numerous times once Web site development starts.

3. Branding
One aspect of all corporate websites, external or internal, is the corporate brand. In an external site, the brand associates the services or products being offered with the company offering them, and obviously, becomes a critical component of any design. In an internal site, the brand -- which may be an adaptation of the corporate brand, or a totally new brand to connote internal usage -- is a key orientation device. This is especially true if you allow users to go outside the firewall to other sites. Once a brand is incorporated within a template, developers no longer need concern themselves with making sure the brand is included, that it appears in the correct spot, or that it uses the sanctioned and correct format.

2. Consistent navigation easing user access to material
When you do not provide a template for your developers, it is all too easy for them to begin to interpret the site navigation scheme -- and make changes that will ultimately confuse and disorient the user. Navigation should never be left to chance. Usability studies, as well as common sense, require that the navigation be portrayed consistently from page to page and section to section within a site. Templates, along with well-defined guidelines, help avoid any laissez faire approach to navigation.

By designing and maintaining consistent, carefully conceived templates, developers help their users find information more quickly. In an eCommerce application, for example, placing product information into a well-defined template means that there would be the same basic structure repeated throughout a catalog function. If your user is interested only in a top-level description and then wants to navigate to prices, for instance, a template that includes consistent headings, giving the user the opportunity to use a drill-down list of links at the top of each file, permits this. The same is true for corporate information. In case studies we have designed at IMA for many of our clients, each page takes on the same, tightly created structure. Users who have experience with one case study will then know where to go for the information they seek in the next.

1. Ability to create high-end applications with relatively less skilled personnel
Large corporations today generally have a few staff members with a high level of HTML production skills, even fewer with high-end front-end programming skills (such as JavaScript or Flash) and a large base of people with sound writing or artistic skills who are used to working toward more traditional print vehicles. It is unrealistic to try to train every writer or artist in a company in all the nuances of HTML coding -- particularly because innovation in web-based coding is currently such a moving target. However, it is equally unrealistic to expect that large volumes of content will flow effortlessly through one or two individuals without a severe production bottleneck occurring. By using templates that incorporate the appropriate codes within them, it is possible to produce high-end applications with relatively less skilled personnel, while reducing the potential production bottleneck to manageable levels.