Web Design Basics – Form and Function
I know you’ve seen those web sites in your travels around the ‘net. You know the ones. The background is some really busy pattern, the font is a contrasting color so small that you can barely make out the words. The page has not been formatted so the text flows from one side of the page to the other. There are a host of images all formatted differently. It just gives you a headache!
Then there are the sites that play a Flash movie intro and then have a “Click Here To Enter” link. Or maybe your browser can’t even open those sites.
There’s even a web site dedicated to finding and publicly exposing outrageously bad web designs.
Maybe you’ve even built a web page or two like that. You know it’s not good, but you don’t know what to do about it.
There are a few basic design principles that every web site should follow. They’re mostly simple and easy to implement. Incorporating them into your site just requires a little thought and planning.
- Remember who your audience is – for the most part, your audience is humans. You want them to be able to read the information you’re sharing on your site. So make it easy for them. Reading on a lighted screen is not the same as reading from paper. It is best to use black text on a white background and wider fonts like Verdana or Georgia in a size that is large enough to read easily.
- Design for older adults and the visually impaired. Use “alt text” tags in your images so that visitors who are using a screen reader will know what is on your page. Allow plenty of white space to provide time for people’s eyes to rest.
- Respect your visitors’ time – Using a Flash intro to your site is usually a total waste of your visitor’s time. However cool it may look, they have come to your site because they believe you have some information they need. Make it fast and easy for them to get to it. Skip the intro pages unless there is a really good reason to have it. (“It’s so cool” is not a really good reason). Make sure your navigation links are easy to read and click. If you are using Flash buttons or drop-down menus test them to make sure they appear when they are needed. Include links to internal resources within the text on your home page.
- Organize your site in a logical manner – A good way to do this is to sit down with a piece of paper or some index cards and a pen and actually list out the pages you will have on your site. Then outline what content will be on each page and group the cards or the pages on your paper. This will help you plan a logical navigation through your site that will help your visitors find the information they’re looking for quickly. I like using index cards because you can lay them out on a table, move them around putting like pages together and get a clear picture of the site structure in your mind. (Personal Note: I’m always pleased when a site visitor tells me they love the way a site looks, but I love it just as much or more when they tell me “It was really easy to navigate”. That’s when I know the site is a success.)
- Choose a color palette and stick to it – Before you start your site design you should decide on a basic color palette that will be easy on the eyes. By this I mean, use harmonious colors that will not “shock” your visitor’s eyes or make it uncomfortable for them to view your site. Generally, choose three colors that are pleasing together and stay within those colors. Too many colors seem chaotic to the brain and make it want to move away, or leave your site.
- Preview your site in a variety of browsers – Different browsers can render the same site in dramatically different ways. It’s always best to test your site in different browsers to make sure it looks the way you expect it to in all of them. At a minimum, you should check Internet Explorer and Firefox as these are the two most popular browsers. (You can have multiple browsers installed on your computer at once.)
- Check all links – Broken links are frustrating to your human visitors and, when the search engine spiders find them, can get your site “de-indexed” or banned. If you must delete or rename a page, make sure you update your sitemap and create a redirect to the new location of the content.
- Avoid using audio – Audio files can be slow to load, especially for those on dial up connections, and having music playing ad infinitum can be really irritating. If you have a message you need to deliver by voice, be sure to place audio controls on your page so that your visitors can pause it or turn it off.
- Update your site content regularly – Periodically review the content of your site and update any outdated or “stale” information. Add new content as well; not every day, but weekly or monthly. One way to do this easily is to publish a newsletter and add each issue to your web site. This gives your customers and prospects a reason to return to your site regularly and makes the search engine ‘bots happy. Over time it will help you improve your ranking in the search results.
- Add a Search function to your site – As your site grows and you have lots of helpful articles there, be sure to add a way for your visitors to find what they are looking for. Google supplies a Search widget you can add to your site where users can specify whether to search your site only or the entire Internet. If you want to keep people at your site, you can find open source (free) search scripts at script archives and add them to your pages.
If you follow these design principles, you’ll be well on your way to a user friendly web site that your visitors will want to return to again and again.
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