Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

That is a fit motto for site-designs, and may result in a great many hours of work.

Fit for overviews and locating a page in the sitemap: 'Section > a number'

Many section links on the site's regular pages are formed thus: Section › 1 (It is a clickable link), and take you to an Archive and (Archive) Section in the Site Map.

What section it is, can be found out in two ways: (1) By clicking on the and get to the section; (2) by decoding the link that pops up when you hover (hold still) the cursor over it. Pick your choice.

The number after › shows where a page is put in its Site Map section. Click on the section link (above), find the section number and go on from there. More often than not the page you started from is in a collection, and collections are marked with a for easy identification. Now, the pages in a collection and the collection itself share one placement number (as in the example above).

To find something in a collection, go to the collection and either look over it or use a page search (press [Ctrl and f] at the same time). The page search may come in handy many a time, for example when the collection lists a thousand headings, like this one: [Deutsches Sagenbuch].

Back to the section-and-placement link, Section › 1: We may actually locate where a page is in the Site Map at a glance, without clicking on anything: just hover (hold still) the cursor over the 'Section' and note the final letter and number (after #) in the link that pops up at bottom of the window.

The letter (a in this case) is for the archive (by a = 1, b = 2, c= 3, d = 4, etc.), and the number locates which Site Map section to look at or into.

Reading with ease

For any of the three most used browsers (2016), you may increase the text size on a page by just pressing 'Control' and + at the same time. In short: [Ctrl and +].
To decrease the size: [Ctrl and -].
To get it back to the regular size, press Control and the number 0 simultaneously: [Ctrl and 0].
And to set the size of the display on a more permanent basis - not just for one page - do as the various browsers inform you to do for it.

Identify items so they can help you navigate

For "help-out" background pages, like this one, the design differs from that of the main pages. You see if from the icon button (the yellow flower) in the upper left corner, the slanted, red arrow beneath it, the colour of the links in the coloured bands at top and bottom of the page, and the names of the links throughout.

Here is what you may meet on many ordinary pages:

The array on top of the pages

1. A special icon. Different pictures for different kinds of pages. Different colours of the bands they are inside, signal the same thing. By clicking on the top left icon button (the flower image) you get to the Site Map. From the Site Map you may go to the First Page by clicking on the Site Map's upper left image button, or on the 'Thematic' link near the top right of the page. In both cases you get to the whole site's front page (portal), where the theme pages are. [First page].
2. Site Map. In the upper left part of a page is a clickable emblem (an image). This top left image is usually a flower, and on older pages it is a dragon. By clicking on it you may get to the Site Map. Here is the map: [English Site Map] On the site map, in a column to the right, there are some further links to look into also.

3. Other links on top of the pages. In the upper, coloured band on page after page, there are different word-links. Hover and see what each may cover if something pops up the feature is being introduced and not wholly completed so far. More details follow:

The bottom array

At bottom of the regular pages are end matters. For pages that are included in a site collection, 'Contents' is a link to the collection.

Beneath the orange dotted line near the end of many pages is a link ('Literature') to a large site bibliography. Besides, there may be some references on a page also. If so, they are put beneath the 'Literature' link near the page bottom. Footnotes are generally put after the literature list, if there is any such list.

And further down still there is a coloured band - a coloured "ribbon". It contains buttons for 'Up' (to the top of the page) and 'Next' page. The 'Set' and 'Section' for the page is there too.

Beneath neath the coloured band you find publication data for the site, links to a User's Guide, a link to the site's email page, and a link to a general disclaimer.

Between top and bottom is room for several in-text icons

In-text icons may help accessing the ideas of a essay, etc. Aurora Harley of the Norman Nielsen Group tells in "Icon Usability" (July 27, 2014):

A user's understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. . . . [It should] communicate . . . meaning and reduce ambiguity. . . .

Icons must first and foremost communicate meaning . . .

The benefits of icons in a graphical user interface (GUI) include: . . .

Icons are fast to recognize at a glance (if well designed) – particularly true for standard icons . . . seen and used before. . . .

Icons can be visually pleasing and enhance the aesthetic appeal of a design (etc.)

Pretty much of the site design conforms with basic usability rules, as those promoted by the ◦Nielsen Norman Group (see 'Popular Articles').

For example, if there are well defined stages in a discourse, the section are numbered for easy identification. [Essay markers] [Essay design]

Sometimes there are quotation markers too, if they are from a source that appears often, or if what is quoted, is of a certain type. The markers are icons, that is, small images, A Buddhist quotation may serve as an example:

Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men [Dhammapada 78].

The icon in this case is a wheel with eight spokes, which represents the eightfold path, also called the (gentle) Middle Way at the heart of Buddhism.

Links

Outgoing links are generally marked with a small circle, ◦. At any rate you can see if a link is outgoing and possibly where it leads to, by holding your marker still for some seconds on (over) the link your marker without clicking on it.

Internal links are not marked by ◦.

A responsive page design

Content is made available to a wider range of readers by the responsive design that is being introduced on several pages - to the end that the width of a page adapts to the size of the screen from medium large mobile devices up to desktop computers.