Newscounter
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Four Critical Web Design Rules

When creating a new website or redesigning an existent site, there are four critical regulations which the interior designer should follow to do the land land site effectual and functional - and successful.

1. Easy to Read

When edifice a website, the first thing you necessitate to be certain of is that your website is easy to read. When you compose content, retrieve that most web land land site visitants don't read every word of a page - in fact, they only scan pages to happen what they want.

Break up Your Content

Break up your pages and usage headings between major thoughts so people scanning your site can happen what they desire quickly. Use meaningful headings between each paragraph or major thought - this assists with SEO. Headers should be created with the H1 through H4 tags for SEO. Always usage good authorship structure. Additionally, avoid long paragraphs that tally on. You should interrupt up any long paragraphs.

Color and Fonts

To assist readability, usage high direct contrast colours between fount and background. Black textual matter against a achromatic background may look stark, but it is very readable. To do a website easy on the eyes, seek an off-white background and a dark grey (almost black) textual matter color.

Things to avoid with content color:

  • Avoid vivacious background colours like violet or yellow. Such dorsum colours do textual matter hard to read.
  • Avoid using an mental image behind your text.
  • Avoid using bright textual matter colours on bright backgrounds.

Fonts Matter

One simple statement covers the fount issue:

  • Simple founts are the best; the more than illusion the font, the harder it is to read.

Since many browsers only have got the criterion fount set, usage criterion fonts. In reality, there is no "standard", but there are certain founts that are installed on most browsers. These include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma and Times New Roman. Your readers will see something different than you see if you utilize other fonts.

Standard Compliant Browser for Development

When developing and testing your site, usage a Standards compliant browser like FireFox. If you develop your land site to be criteria compliant, it will work in most browsers, including multiple sclerosis Internet Explorer (IE). It is recommended that you prove your land site using the up-to-the-minute and last browser versions of IE (IE6 and IE7). To run multiple versions of IE on the same machine, TredoSoft.com have a free installer that volition put in multiple versions of IE. It works great!

2. Simplify Navigation

The menus and golf course do up the pilotage that the visitant utilizes to acquire from page to page in a site. Always program a land site around how people will acquire from page to page. A visitant to your land site should be able to acquire to what they desire within three chinks of their mouse.

Multiple pilotage points do it easy to happen things. Repeat the top bill of fare and at the bottom. Also make a left or right menu.

Using golf course within your textual matter to other countries on your site. You can make golf course so that they are good for hunt engine optimisation (SEO). There are generally two ways to make golf course within your text:

  • The incorrect way: "For hunt engine optimisation techniques, click here."
  • The right way: "Good techniques for search engine optimization are of import to use."

  • Using nexus textual matter (anchor text) that depicts what the nexus is about is the best way. Search engine web sycophants (programs that automatically index the table of contents of websites) visit your site, they "read" links. Spiders can index descriptive golf course into a topic or keyword category. Spiders have got nil to work with when reading a "click here" until it attains the linked page.

    This is Cross Linking - usage it as much as possible when it make sense to do so when authorship your content.

    3. Consistent Design

    At most, one or two layouts should be used in your land site design. As a reader browsings your site, they should be able to acquire used to looking in the same topographic point for your navigation, for your sub-navigation and for your content. That's all there is to state about that.

    4. Lower Berth Page Weight is Better

    Page weight is the sum size of a page on your land site in bytes - code, textual matter and images. Your site's page weight do a large difference to your viewers. Lighter page weight is better for your readers because the page will download faster. The faster a page downloads, the faster they will acquire to the content.

    What is Means to be Light

    • No big images. (unless the site's intent is to show window images, fine art or photos)
    • Fewer mental mental images are better.
    • Optimize mental images for the web at no more than than 72 dpi
    • Use as little an mental image dimension as possible for the given design.
    • Use a tabular array td bgcolor property or a background-color style property for solid colour backgrounds.
    • Make gradients horizontal or perpendicular (not diagonal) so that you can utilize a little mental image "strip" and repetition it.

    How "Heavy" Should a Web Page be?

    Certain surveys demo that 64K is a good upper limit webpage size. 64K is a maximum, however it is still, in my opinion, really big! The littler the page, the better. 25K is good, 15K is even better. There is a balance between designing and function. It is a good thought to concentrate more than on function.

    Try putting pages on your web host waiter as you construct your land site so you can prove it as you go. For pages online, you can prove the page weight to be certain you are on track.

    Ways to do pages lighter:

    • Use linked style sheets
    • Use DIVs instead of TABLEs where possible
    • Use simple repeating backgrounds for consequence

    Summary

    Visitors to your website should be able to happen what they are looking for within about three clicks. Making a land site easy to read with consistent page design, and easy to voyage volition do it easy to happen information. You will be on the manner to edifice a readable, effective, functional and hopefully successful website if you follow these rules.

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