The most important rule in
web design is that your website ought to be easy to check out. What does this indicate? You should select your text and background colours extremely thoroughly. You don't want to utilize backgrounds that obscure your text or use colours that are difficult to check out. Dark-coloured text on a light-coloured background is easier to read than light-coloured text on a dark background.
You likewise don't want to set your text size too little (difficult to read) or too big (it will appear to shout at your visitors). All capitalized letters give the appearance of shouting at your visitors.
Keep the positioning of your primary text to the left, not cantered. Centre-aligned text is best utilized in headings. You desire your visitors to be comfy with exactly what they are reading, and most text is left lined up.
Your web site need to be simple to browse
All of your links should be clear to your visitors. Graphic images, such as buttons or tabs, ought to be clearly labelled and simple to read. Your web graphic designer ought to pick the colours, backgrounds, textures, and unique results on your web graphics extremely carefully. It is more important that your navigational buttons and tabs be simple to read and comprehend than to have "flashy" results. Link colours in your text ought to be familiar to your visitor (blue text generally indicates an unvisited link and purple or maroon text normally shows a checked out link), if possible. If you elect not to utilize the default colours, your text links must be emphasized in some other method (boldfaced, a larger font size, set between little vertical lines, or a combination of these). Text links need to be special - they must not look the like other text in your web pages. You do not want people clicking your headings because they think the headings are links.
Your visitors should have the ability to find exactly what they are trying to find in your site within 3 clicks. If not, they are highly likely to click off your site as rapidly as they clicked.
Your website should be simple to discover
How are your visitors finding you online? The misconception, "If I develop a website, they will come," is still a frequently held belief amongst business and organisations brand-new to the Web. People will not come to your website unless you promote your website both online and offline.
Website are promoted online by means of online search engine, directory sites, award sites, banner advertising, electronic magazines (e-zines) and links from other web sites. If you are not knowledgeable about any of these online terms, then it is best that you have your website promoted by an internet marketing specialist.
Website are promoted offline through the standard advertising approaches: print ads, radio, tv, pamphlets, word-of-mouth, etc. As soon as you have developed a web site, all your company's printed materials including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, billings, etc. ought to have your URL printed on them.
Not your
web design should be easy to find, but your contact details must be easy to find. People want to understand that there is a person at the other end of a website who can help them on the occasion that:
1. They need answers to concerns which are not readily available on your website;
2. Some aspect on your site is not working and end users have to be able to inform you about it, and
3. Directory editors require you to modify parts of your website to be sure that your website is placed in the most appropriate classification.
By providing all pertinent contact details (physical address, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email address), you are likewise producing a complacency for your end users. They can call you in the manner in which makes them feel the most comfy.
Your web design layout and design need to correspond throughout the website
Just as in any document formatted on a word processing program or as in any sales brochure, newsletter, or newspaper formatted in a desktop publishing program, all graphic images and aspects, typefaces, headings, and footers ought to stay constant throughout your website. Consistency and coherence in any file, whether it is a report or a set of websites, project a professional image.
For example, if you use a drop shadow as a special impact in your bullet points, you ought to use drop shadows in all of your bullets. Link-colours should correspond throughout your web pages. Typefaces and background colours, too, must stay the very same throughout your site.
Colour-coded websites, in particular, require this consistency. Typefaces, positioning in the main text and the headings, background impacts, and the unique effects on graphics should stay the exact same. Just the colours need to change.
Your web site need to fast to download
Studies have indicated that visitors will rapidly lose interest in your website if the majority of a page does not download within 15 seconds. (Artists' pages must have a warning at the top of their pages.) Even web sites that are marketed to high-end users need to consider download times. Often, getting to web sites such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems is so hard and time consuming that visitors will typically try to access the websites throughout non-working hours from their homes. If your service does not have excellent brand recognition, it is best to keep your download time as short as possible.
A good application of this rule is adding animation to your site. Sure, animation looks "cool" and does initially catch your eye, however animation graphics tend to be big files. Test the download time of your pages first. If the download time of your page is relatively short and the addition of animation does not unreasonably increase the download time of your page, then and JUST then ought to animation be a factor to consider.
Finally, before you consider the individual preferences of your web page style, you should consider all of the above guidelines FIRST and adapt your individual preferences accordingly. The mindset "I don't like how it looks" need to always be secondary to your web site's function. Which is more important: imaginative expression/corporate image or running an effective organisation?
