Guide, Don’t Confuse
Whether you are building an online magazine or a web story, this guide shows how to develop a format that provides orientation, allows depth, and guides your audience safely through the content: linear, branching, or hybrid.
Good Content Needs a Form That Carries It
Strong content is more than text, media, data, and design. It is also crucial how everything is connected. Where does the story begin? What order makes sense? Where is an additional entry point worthwhile? Which information belongs directly in the main flow - and which is better as a separate layer?
Especially in digital storytelling, these questions quickly become central. A compact presentation needs a different dramaturgy than an annual report. A multimedia special follows other principles than a report, and a learning format poses different challenges than a product story or an interactive magazine.
Pageflow helps you not only design these kinds of content in a multimedia format, but also guide your audience deliberately. The structure can be clearly linear, open up additional paths, or combine both. The goal is not to offer as many options as possible. The goal is to define the structure that supports the content.
When a Linear Structure Is Exactly Right
Before thinking about branches, side paths, or internal jumps, it is worth looking at the simplest and often strongest form: the linear story. A linear structure guides people through a topic step by step. It sets priorities, controls pace, and makes connections easier to understand.
For many web projects, this is the best choice: scrollytelling formats, presentations, compact product stories, or digital reports with a clear argument. Users do not have to choose, jump, or weigh options. They can trust the flow.
Only when content needs to do more, for example serve different interests, provide additional context, or make longer sections easier to access, do additional paths come into play.
Non-Linear and Hybrid Story Structures
Where a pure main path is not sufficient, three typical forms can be distinguished in Pageflow: the Entry Point Story, which connects further Pageflow stories, the Deeper Exploration through excursions, and navigation through Internal Linking within a linear story. The following will take a closer look at these three scenarios.
The Pageflow Toolbox
For such advanced structures, Pageflow offers various tools. They can be used individually, but often their strength is revealed in combination.
Content Elements
Teasers
are suitable for overviews, introductions, and navigation through chapters and sections. They can optionally lead to additional Pageflow stories or external content. Depending on the design, they appear as a link grid or a horizontally scrollable carousel.
→ You can find more information about this here.
Hotspots
make images, graphics, or maps interactive. Marked areas of an image can display additional information, highlight details, or link to further content. This is particularly powerful when content needs to be visually explored.
→ You can find more information here.
CTA Buttons
set clear action points. They are suitable when a next step should be consciously highlighted: read more, deepen, discover, jump or try out.
Core Features
Chapters
are the simplest way to structure stories by content and are created directly via the outline. By default, they are shown in the navigation bar for orientation and allow users to access specific content directly.
Excursions
create space for in-depth content away from the main path. They open above the main content and are suitable for background information, definitions, data, interviews, additional examples, or audiovisual supplements. After closing, users automatically return to the point where an excursion was opened. This maintains the flow of reading.
→ You can find more information about this here.
Text Links
can connect individual sections within a story as bookmarks and help make longer content more accessible. If desired, they can also be used to link to external content, such as sources or further articles.
Skillfully combined, this results in a universal toolbox for targeted user guidance.
Scenario 1 - The Entry Point A story serves as an overview and introduction to further stories
For topic hubs, campaigns, online magazines, or serial formats, a single Pageflow story is often only the starting point. It organizes a topic, makes choices visible, and leads into additional stories.
Teasers are especially well suited to this. They show at a glance which content is available, how the options differ, and which entry point may be interesting for whom. A simple list of links becomes a curated overview.
An overview page with 3 links to external sites
This can take many forms: three teaser tiles lead to different perspectives; a horizontal teaser row introduces several chapters in a series; a campaign page brings together reportages, interviews, and background pieces; or a digital report offers different entry points for different audiences.
Exemplary Entry Point Story
Hotspots can also take on this role. A map, an illustration, a group photo, or a product view becomes the entry layer itself. Instead of abstract links, the image invites people to explore interactively.
What matters is order. Too many equal options do not create more freedom at the entry point. They create hesitation. Strong entry points set clear priorities: What is the recommended path? Which alternatives are available? And why is each click worth it?
👉 Here you can find a few real-world examples.
Typical Applications
- Topic hubs with several individual stories
- Magazine issues or campaign pages
- Annual reports with different chapters
- Series formats with multiple perspectives
- Entry points based on target audience, topic, or usage situation
Scenario 2 - The Deeper Exploration In-depth content is better placed in excursions than in the main flow
Reports, learning formats, and complex topics often contain material that is valuable but would slow down the main flow: background knowledge, data, methods, glossaries, interviews, sources, examples, or audiovisual additions.
Excursions are designed for exactly this case. They create a second layer without interrupting the main story. Anyone who wants to know more opens the digression, dives deeper, and then automatically returns to the original position.
A main narrative thread with excursions and additional links
This makes excursions particularly strong for content that can optionally deepen knowledge and provide additional information if a user is interested. The main path remains clear and readable. The deepening is still accessible. This creates a pleasant principle: depth on demand. Not everything needs to have the same weight in the main flow. Additional information has its own place and remains part of the same publication.
Exemplary Excursions Into In-Depth Content
An excursus can, for example, explain how a data analysis was created. It can complement an interview, clarify a technical term, contextualize a historical detail, or show additional image and video material. The main path keeps the story lean. The second level provides context for those who want to take a closer look.
👉 Here you can find a few real-world examples.
Typical Applications
- Background information in reports
- Methodology and sources in data projects
- Glossaries or definitions in learning formats
- Additional interviews in digital reports
- Practical examples in product or technical articles
Scenario 3 - The Internal Linking A story remains linear but becomes interactively navigatable
In longer web stories, extensive reports, or repeatedly used content, a linear main path can still be the right choice. At the same time, it helps to make individual sections directly accessible and provide extra orientation.
This is where internal links, jump marks, teaser tiles, and CTA buttons come in. They make the structure more visible without giving up the linear character.
A main narrative thread with internal linking
A teaser list can serve as a table of contents within a publication and complement the general chapter navigation in the header. Text links can connect related sections. Buttons can lead to practical examples, checklists, or key chapters. Hotspots can turn a graphic into a navigation element.
The distinction from branching is important: the story remains linear at its core. It simply gains additional orientation points. This helps readers when they want to find specific content again, skip chapters, or return directly to a section.
Exemplary Linear Story with Internal Links
- Video: Images made with AI
A well-thought-out user guidance through internal linking can improve the accessibility of web content. The common thread remains intact, but the audience can move more flexibly within a story.
For jumps like these, it is useful to offer a clearly visible way back at the end of a linked section or chapter, for example back to the overview, to the original point, or to other relevant parts of the story. Back buttons are more than navigation elements. They make clear that a section is not isolated, but part of a larger context. This prevents dead ends and keeps longer stories readable as a coherent structure.
👉 Here you can find a few real-world examples.
Typical Applications
- Long scrolling storytelling formats
- Digital annual reports
- Guides and how-to articles
- Chapter overviews within a story
- Content that is reused later or accessed selectively
How the Scenarios Can Be Combined
In practice, these three forms rarely appear in isolation. A project can begin linearly, offer digressions at selected points, later include a chapter overview, and end by leading into further content. That is not a contradiction. It is precisely where Pageflow is strong: content does not have to be either linear or branching. It can retain a clear vertical flow and open additional paths where they genuinely help.
A digital report, for example, can start with a linear summary, offer excursions for data and background in later chapters, and use a teaser list at the end to link to individual case studies. A campaign page can work as the entry point into several stories. Each story remains linear on its own, while offering excursions or internal jumps at selected points. A learning format can follow a clear sequence, while hotspots open additional examples in graphics and buttons lead to exercises or deeper material.
The decisive question is always the function: Does an element lead onward? Does it deepen? Does it organize? Does it make something easier to find again? Or does it only distract instead of adding real value?
A Simple Structure Check
Before you build a format in Pageflow, a few questions can help:
- Is a clear main path sufficient for this project?
- Where does the audience need choice rather than sequence?
- Which content should be accessible without burdening the main flow?
- Where is an excursion worth using?
- Which images or graphics can become an entry point themselves?
- Where do internal links or jump marks help?
- Which elements lead further, which deepen, which connect?
These questions create a structure that makes visible what matters, where the next step is, and where optional depth is available.
Conclusion: The Best Structure Is the One That Fits the Content
Good web content does not automatically need more paths. For many projects, a clear linear flow is the strongest solution. It creates focus, rhythm, and orientation.
Where content needs to do more, Pageflow tools such as teaser lists, digressions, hotspots, and CTA buttons open additional possibilities. They help organize entry points, make depth accessible, and keep longer stories easier to navigate.
Not every piece of content needs all of these tools. But every piece of content benefits when its form is chosen deliberately.
The most important decision happens at the concept stage: What movement should your content enable? Once that question is answered, a web story becomes more than a beautiful surface. It becomes a format that guides, deepens, and connects, giving your audience exactly the orientation it needs.