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No matter if your website is a personal site with a few pages or
a huge corporation website, having a good design is one of the most
important things. It matters a lot to visitors and can make the
difference between leaving a site or bookmarking it.
Here are a few
tips to help improve your design:
1. Pages should load fast. Most people will leave your site
if it's not done loading in ten or 15 seconds. And even if you have
a fast internet connection, not everyone does and 56k modems still
exist.
2. Text should be easy to read. The text size should be big
enough, and the background should not obscure your text. If you want
to be safe, use black text on a white background. If you want more
color, choose very carefully to make sure it's still easy to read.
3. Your website should be easy to navigate. Each link should
be clearly identified as such and graphic navigation elements like
buttons and tabs should be easy to read and use. You do not want
people leaving because they could not figure out how your Flash menu
works.
4. Your layout and design should be consistent. If you switch
between styles too much, you will confuse your visitors. If the
design is too different, people will believe that they are now on a
different website since the layout changed.
5. Avoid music and sounds. Very few people like to have music
forced on them while they navigate, especially if they are already
listening to music or surfing at their job! If you really cannot do
without music, turn it off by default and ask visitors to start it
themselves.
6. Design for browser compatibility. Many people do not use
Internet Explorer on Windows. Make sure your site is at least
viewable in Mozilla Firefox and Opera (if possible, you could even
try testing on a Mac). Sites that target markets like technology
should be more careful, since readers are more likely to use the
newest browsers and gadgets like PDAs.
7. Design for all screen resolutions. You may like to surf in
1240x1080 with your new screen, but some people still use 800x600,
or even 640x768! A site that looks perfect in high resolution may
turn out to be impossible to view correctly in 800x600.
And, if you have a doubt, test, test and test! You can also ask your
family and friends for help. Being less familiar with the website,
they can help find a lot of things you overlooked. |
