Wikipedia the Network

In Radan Martinec and Teho van Leeuwen’s article “The Language of New Media Design: Theory and Practice”, they lay out the five website structures that are often seen on today’s internet. They include the given and new, ideal and real, star, tree, and network. Though some are more commonly used than others, certain websites may even choose to use one or more of these layouts together to create a complex and visually interesting site for their visitors.

The network is the most complicated of the designs, though it may incorporate some of the other layouts within its links and informational pages. It is designed to present the view with as much information as it can, which is not always centralized around a starting point and does not always follow linear hierarchies. It instead connects bits of information that are related to one another via links, which connects that information to still more related content, in an seemingly unending web of linked connections.

Wikipedia, as we discussed in our webcam lecture, is a good example of the network layout. It consists of not only the network models, but also the star model on its opening page, which features a fractured globe surrounded by language links for the viewer to choose from. This centralized image surrounded by the links forms a bond between the image and the things around it. It represents the site itself and all the languages it can be accessed in, even without explaining this connection.

When someone accesses a piece of information on the site itself, say they are researching ponies and horses, a linear model page is brought up, with words highlighted in blue. These are the links that define a network. They connect the immediate search page to other related information that may be explained further on another page. For example, one may research ponies and find a link to a certain sport in which ponies are participants such as polo. From the page on polo, a link may appear to the British Monarchy who are avid polo players, and take the viewer to a page about the British Monarchy. This is the essential function of the network, to connect pages to display the greatest amount of information in not always a linear, centralized or hierarchical structure.