and giving a structure to
its information contents. The first and best design approach that authors of a
genealogy website should consider in designing the information structure of their
website is the multilayered structure. A multilayered structure is a theoretical construct
to organize a body of information. The multilayered structure is often used by authors
to organize a non-fiction literary work such as a book, a chapter in a book, an article, or
in our case, a genealogy website. The multilayered structure is a perfect way to organize
a complex topic such as a genealogy website. We can say emphatically that a genealogy
website should take advantage of this design approach!
Giving a Structure to the Information Content
Most of the features to be implemented in a genealogy website will require, produce, or
be associated with information. It is this information and how to structure it that we are
discussing here.
A New Term: Information Element
In particular, the design of a website is concerned with the placement of information on
web pages. The packets of information of a topic that are placed on web pages, are
given a special name at www.genealogyhosting.com: we call them information
elements. An information element is one or more pieces of information about a specific
topic that can be thought of as a whole. For example, a family group sheet, a person on
the family group sheet, a list of people buried in a cemetery, a description of the
cemetery itself, a plat map of a county, a description of the county itself are all examples
of information elements. Notice that information elements always can be decomposed
into lower-level information elements. Structuring the information of a genealogy
website comes down to the actual placement of the information elements at a certain
level of decomposition on specific web pages of the website.
T
Note This article is a summary of the topic of using a multilayered
structure to design a genealogy website. For a complete explanation
of this topic, see the book Getting Started on Your Genealogy
Website available from the www.genealogyhosting.com website.

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A New Term: Hyperlink Model
Websites are different from other non-fiction literary works such as books. In a website,
not all the information for a topic is put together in one place as it is in a typical non-
fiction book. Rather, the author can take advantage of the idea of hypermedia the
linking of web pages so readers are not limited to reading the material sequentially and
can jump around using hyperlinks based on their needs. With hypermedia, the
information elements of a topic are spread over more than one web page. Then the web
pages are interlinked via hyperlinks so that visitors can access the information elements
in a nonsequential and ad-hoc manner based on their needs.
So how does the author of a website know on which web page a particular information
element goes? The placement of information elements is controlled by what we call the
hyperlink model at www.genealogyhosting.com. The hyperlink model provides the
view of the information all the visitor sees is what is revealed by the hyperlink model.
The hyperlink model is actually implemented by making use of hypermedia in which
hyperlinks are placed in the information elements of the web pages of the website.
Thus, the hyperlink model is distributed throughout the information elements on the
various web pages of a website. However, the hyperlink model is a logical structure
that is designed and thought of as a single entity. In other words, the author designs the
hyperlink model as a whole even though it is implemented by distributing it in the
content throughout the website.
This means the information elements of the web pages of a genealogy website have two
duties: first the information elements carry the actual genealogy information of the
website and second, the information elements have the hyperlinks of the hyperlink
model embedded in them to implement the hyperlink model.
In effect, the hyperlink model is an abstraction mechanism which hides complexity from
the visitor. The hyperlink model hides the physical location of web pages. Web pages
can be located anywhere on the internet. That is, the actual physical location of web
pages referenced by the hyperlink model is transparent to the visitor and all he or she
sees is the hyperlink model.
An important point about the hyperlink model is that it creates in the mind of the visitor
a model of the structure of the website, hence the name hyperlink model. The
formation of this mental construct, the model, in the mind of the visitor is the goal of the
design of the website the quicker and more complete the hyperlink model is
understood by the visitor, the better the website is designed. That is, the author of the
website purposely designs the hyperlink model so that visitors will quickly and
efficiently grasp the model of the information structure of the website as a whole and
hopefully, at a glance. In this way, they can anticipate the structure of the website and
quickly understand how to navigate the website even as first time visitors.
So whats a multilayered structure?
A multilayered structure is a theoretical construct used to organize information. In a
multilayered structure, the author places the information elements of the non-fiction
literary work in logical layers. The non-fiction literary work can be anything from a
non-fiction book, an article, or in our case, a genealogy website. The information

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elements of the literary work, by definition, come from one coherent subject matter
which we call a body of related information. That is, the non-fiction literary work is
written by a practitioner who draws on the body of related information of the discipline
to produce the work. In fact, the information of a genealogy website is a prime example
of a body of related information.
Categories are the Key
Multilayered structures are created by the author by classifying the information
elements and placing them in categories. It is always possible to perform this
categorization of the information elements because the body of related information in
question comes from an underlying discipline (field of study, business, avocation) which
has methodologies, theories, and practices. In our case, the author is a genealogist and
the discipline is genealogy. Also, whenever a practitioner reads a non-fiction literary
work, he or she would quickly understand the categories and would thus instantly
understand the organization of the literary work.
So the information elements of the body of related information are classified into
categories based on the expertise of a practitioner from the underlying discipline. Also,
any practitioner who works in the discipline would naturally classify the information
elements into these categories. So, in the case of a genealogy website, it is the discipline
of genealogy as practiced by genealogists that define and classify their genealogy
information into categories widely recognized and used by most genealogists. Also, the
primary audience will be genealogists who will understand and appreciate the
categories and the classification of the information elements into those categories.
Once the information elements from a body of related information have been classified
into categories, then the categories can be manipulated to organize the body of related
information. This is done by focusing on the categories just defined. The categories are
arranged into layers, stacked like bricks, in which the order of a category in the stack is
important. The layers will be carefully arranged by the author so that practitioners of
the body of related information can understand it and navigate it (get from one place in
the body of related information to another).
The order of the stacking of the categories into proper layers is based on the internal
relations between the information elements from one layer to another. A relation is a
logical connection between two information elements. The practitioners of the discipline
would naturally associate those information elements together. Well return to the
subject of relations in a moment but for now lets look at some examples of multilayered
structures.
Example: Cars in the County
Figure 1 shows a typical multilayered structure. This multilayered structure organizes
all the new cars in the county. Notice that this structure is not necessarily a website and
could take the form of a hardcopy pamphlet. Remember we are talking about the
multilayered structure as a theoretical construct. The body of related information of this
multilayered structure are the cars in the county and the discipline is the car industry.
Practitioners in the car industry would naturally classify the cars into the categories
shown as layers in Figure 1.

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There are five layers of information elements.
The top layer 5 contains all the car manufacturers (Ford, Dodge, Toyota, GMC, etc.)
that manufacture cars that are sold in the United States.
Layer 4 contains all the car dealerships in the county.
Layer 3 contains all the body styles of cars (sedans, luxury, SUVs, minivans, etc.)
possible.
Layer 2 contains all the car models (Aspen, Explorer, Civic, LaCrosse, etc.