|
|
Website Design Basic Concepts
So, what's in a website design anyway? And, how do you get a design that is appealing to the broad and varied tastes of all those Internet surfers out there?
This is critical. Your website design is the first impression you make on your customers and visitors. There are a few sites in my favorites and bookmarks that I consider poorly designed. I still have them, because they have information I want. Lucky for the site owner that their content was that good! But one day I will find another site with the same information and a better design. Then guess who will be in my favorites and who will be left out? Maybe your content is great too, but don't take chances on a poor design. Think how much more repeat traffic and referred traffic you will get if you have both great content and great design.
Design Taste Varies - OK, design is a matter of taste and target audience to some degree. What looks good to one visitor may not be so great to another. Here we have the old adage of "one man's trash is another man's treasure". But there are solid basics that go into good site design. Creating a distinctive visual style and applying it consistently is the best way to bind a series of subjects and web pages together.
Layouts - The layout of your site is an important design element. A webpage is a document, plain and simple. It is like formatting a letter, an outline, a report, or an advertisement. Establish a layout grid and a style for handling your text and graphics, then stick with it to build a consistent rhythm and unity across all the pages of your site. Make it easy to follow, pleasing to the eye. Learn to use tables and nested tables, lists, and even well designed frames for controlling layouts.
Color - Color has a lot to do with target audience as well. What appeals to a teenager may not work with a target audience of baby-boomers, and so forth. But anybody can appreciate color coordination. Color coordination can be learned. Yes, it's a lot easier if you have a natural "knack" for these things, but you can learn basic color coordination techniques that make the difference between "tacky, yuk!!!" and "soothing to the eye".
Safe Colors - Everyone does NOT have 16 million colors on their computer. Learn to use the websafe 216 colors. Notice that's 216 colors, not 256 colors. This is a matter of video card capability and you are at the mercy of the viewer's personal computer system. Your best bet is to stick to 6 x 6 x 6 bit color resolution (216 colors) to cover the majority of Internet users. The 216 color palette gives you plenty for design options. Sure, not as many as 256 colors or 16 million, but still plenty to accomplish what you want or need to do with color.
Page Load Time - Now I'll be the first person to admit that I have made *personal* web pages which have large graphics or music .wav files and other things that take awhile to load. The point here is, they are my personal websites, *not* my professional or commercial websites. I may use these long loading pages for demo-ing several techniques, or chatting with friends and other developers, but never never never for professional site design (unless my client insists, in which case I do not use their site as a demo to other potential clients!). This doesn't mean you have to give up everything on professional sites. It just means take it easy, use only one high-load-time element or two, learn to compress your graphics properly, and if you've got that much "stuff" then break it up into more than one page.
Don't Overdo IT - A typical mistake among developers is to overdo it when putting together a website. Try to use extras in moderation. Some common things that get overused are:
- graphics
- background images
- bevels and other graphic tricks
- excessive frames
- text scrolling, animated .gif's, page fade-ins
Too much of something just comes off as being "cutsie", tacky, or unoriginal...but used properly it can add just the right touch. Learn to use things that compliment your site's content, and not to overdo it with extra techniques and tricks.
Readability - Make your pages as easy to read as possible. Black text on a white or off-white background is the easiest to read. There are plenty of hard-to-read pages that use backgrounds the same shade as the text (dark text on a dark background and light on light), or what I call the "neon" look with bright color on bright color.
Learn to use the tag and give your readers a font that's easy on the eye. I always think it's such a shame to see a site full of great content and then left in the default Times New Roman font. Use a sans-serif font - arial and verdana are good choices, then put "sans-serif" generic font in your last html tag attribute to cover anyone that may not have a specific font you listed as a first choice or second choice.
Browser and Monitor Compatibility -. Learn to make your web pages compatible with both Microsoft Internet Explorer(IE) and Netscape Navigator. After preparing a site, test it in both browsers and ondifferent screen sizes or resolutions. Typical figures are 80% of Internet users are on the IE browser, 80% using 800 x 600 resolution, and most on a 15" or 17" screen....but, can you really afford for your site to look poor to 20% of the market? The answer is NO. Make your site compatible with both browsers and take that silly "best viewed with..." graphic off the site! Furthermore, use alt tags in your graphics for people who surf with images turned off, or on smaller browsers which don't support them.
Using Java - Personally, I like Java and use it in site design. However, you have to remember many people turn it off for one reason or another. Or they may be using a browser that doesn't support it.Therefore, if you use a java driven menu (quite popular nowadays), you better have some alternate navigation.
About The Author
Kim Eyer, of EyerStation.com publishes the WebSiteOwner eZine for webmasters and small businesses. To get your monthly copy and access to its support website, send a blank email to eyerstation@carolina.net with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.
15 Website Elements That Attract Visitors
Here is a quick list of components that make a website attractive. They are listed in layers of attractiveness beginning with the "must" haves, to "nice to haves."
Why Not To Use Web Design Templates For Your Website
In today's age of fast food and high-speed Internet, a business may be tempted to take the "more convenient" route in launching a website ? buying a template and customising it.
Web Site Professionalism? What Is It?
Your web site should be-
Quality of Your Text Layout and Design
Why is the quality of your text layout and design important on your web site? For the simple reason that people tends to stay longer on a web site that radiates quality and simplicity.
Effective Website Design For Massive Traffic
STEP 1:Do your homework
11 Steps to Sticky Web Site!
An attractive and user-friendly Web site is crucial to attracting prospects and holding their interest. Seems obvious, yet poor design and even more poorly written content clutter the Web.
Ten Steps to a Winning Home Page
There's no doubt about it - the first page your site visitors see is the most important page of your website. If your home page isn't appealing, chances are the rest of your pages will never even be seen by your visitors. It helps to think of your home page as the "front door" to your online business. Will it invite people to come in and look around, or persuade them to take their dollars elsewhere? Here are ten tips for making your home page a winner:
Reach Out To Billions
Have you heard of 'Babel Fish'?
Web Page Building for Beginners 2
A search engine robot actually reads the wording on your web pages and places a certain amount of importance on what the content says, but not quite like a human does. A human will place the words together in their head and try to decipher the relevancy to them personally and decide within a few seconds whether they will continue reading or click to another site, whereas a robot counts words and places all relevancy in the numbers it finds. It also gives extra credit to the size of the type and title of each page.
Sell Yourself First...Your Key To More Sales
Selling on the internet is a challenge. There is no way to come "face to face" with your potential buyer. That visitor is unlikely to buy from you on the first visit. It's likely to take several visits and contacts before they throw down that cash or credit card.
Wording Up Your Website
Back to basics. Forget funky design, good copywriting is the key to a clear and intuitive website.
10 Ways Web Site Text Can Impact Your Readers Buying Decision
10 Ways Web Site Text Can Impact Your Reader's Buying Decision
Website Basics
The Basics
Are Web Templates Worth It?
First off, I am a designer. Now you're thinking, here's this guy trying to convince me to hire a designer costing a few hundred to a few thousand dollars instead of buying a pre-made web template for about $60. Well, these days most companies don't have the money to invest in a costly web site and there are thousands of hungry web designers out there, plus now there are web template resources. These resources can equal great value and effectiveness for the customer as well as increased business for the web designer.
Database Driven Website
The solution lies in creating a 'Database driven website', through which web pages are created dynamically which further gives a web site visitor an up-to-dated view of information stored in the database. When the information in the database is updated, site visitors will immediately see the changes that have been made.
When Your Graphic Designer Costs You Money
So how do you know when your graphic designer costs you financially and emotionally?
How to use Emotional Content to Increase Visitor Response
Did you know that many folks make "buying decisions" when they are moved emotionally? Other traditional medias have made the most of these principles and taken advantage of them for many years, whether it be a TV commercial or an ad in a magazine. People are emotional beings and people make decisions (either good or bad) when they are emotional. If something causes a customer to become upset, they become angry and try and solve it. If they become upset enough...they'll make a decision to perhaps discontinue your service and hire another service. On a positive side, the TV media bombards us with commercials that try to make an advertisers product seem fun or cute. The "emotional content" tactic is in nearly every advertising and communication media from print to radio to TV and yes, even the web. Emotional content is used to sell everything from fast food to children's toys.
Orient Your First-time Web Site Visitor
Imagine spinning someone around so profoundly and for so long that when you finally tell them to open their eyes, they ask "Where am I?" not knowing if they are even on the same continent they started from. When someone comes to your web site from a search engine or through a link from another site, it's like that for them. They may have little or no context within which to understand your home page - or another page deep within your site that they've landed on.
One-Product Sales Sites: Avoid These Top Blunders
One product, one long web page: this kind of web site is sometimes called a sales letter site or mini-site, and it focuses on one and only one goal, as many sales of that one product as possible. With a one-product sales site, no distractions, no subsidiary goals, such as newsletter signups, are allowed to interfere with that goal. So let's look at some common mistakes and omissions for a sales letter site.
Bad Web Design: ActiveX
ActiveX uses an interesting method for enforcing security ... it doesn't. Well, that's not exactly true. What happens is when a web page requests an ActiveX control the browser determines if that control is already loaded onto your system. If it is the ActiveX control is executed. If not, the user is asked if it is okay to install the control. Additional information about where the control came from and it's security implications is also included.