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So you want to design your own website to put on the world
wide web? Well as easy as it may seem; such as with anything,
there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to go about
it.
The most important element of web page design is making
things simple for the end user. Take, for an example, a
dictionary. If the words weren't in alphabetical order,
then it would be near impossible to find anything. The same
thing applies in web design. You need to give your users
a clear cut navigation system to work from. If a user has
to search for more than a few seconds on how to go to the
next page of your site, they probably won't go to the next
page of your site. It doesn't mater where you put it on
a layout either. It could be at the top, bottom, left, or
right. Also, it's worth making a note of, if your site uses
frames make sure you list some links back to the index or
put a small menu at the bottom of each page; because if
the inside frame is caught a users eye via a search engine,
then they'd be trapped in that one page and unable to navigate
anywhere else in your site.
For larger websites, it wouldn't hurt to also have a site
map page. This lays your entire site out in one page usually
giving a hierarchy of links and sometimes a brief description
of the content on that page.
Most webmasters look over this for the sake of being on
the leading edge of technology. This however is not always
the best way to operate. You have to take in consideration
that your readers could be using a plethora of different
operating systems or one of the many internet browsers out
there available today. Also don't forget that many people
are using a larger resolutions as well. It's important to
get at least the most popular browsers in your hands (IE:
Internet Explorer and Mozilla) then test to make sure your
end page is looking the way you want it to in any browser.
You must also look at the page via many different screen
resolutions to see how limited you might be leaving other
people out there. A tip I always use is to try working your
page in percentages first. Instead of that table being 543
pixels, make it 80 percent. That way no matter what the
screen resolution, it will always cover 80 percent of the
screen. Anybody can built a layout, but only few can make
that same layout accessible to anybody and everybody. Font
sizes are important as well. The smaller they are, the harder
it's going to be to read them at a higher resolution. If
you insist on using small fonts though, at least make sure
your font color and your background contrast enough to where
the text shows up as clear as it can. (IE: black text on
a white background)
A rule of accessibility that some forget is to label your
images. Make sure you give it some kind of tag, such as
"a picture from my summer vacation". This will
not only help handicapped viewers of your site, but if the
user has images turned off or if he's just waiting for it
to load he'll know what that picture is about. Along with
making sure you give an alt tag with your pictures and images,
make sure you label their height and width as well. That
way if a layout is taking some time to load, we can be sure
that the picture of grandma is only one-hundred pixels high
and one-hundred pixels in width.
The last element of design I have to share with you is targeting
your audience. As another example, take a website for a
retirement home. You wouldn't want to put bright neon colors,
really tiny text and nuclear explosion images all over the
page. You would want to use cool and calm colors, large
text, and maybe a few pictures around the grounds of the
retirement home.
If you're creating a web page, then we assume that you know
who you're creating it for. Try to give your users a layout
they can enjoy, and aim towards their needs and wants.
I'm sure there are more tips and tricks to web design that
I didn't even begin to go into here, but these are definitely
the most important. Without ease of use, visitors won't
stay at your site for long out of frustration. Without accessibility,
you're cutting the prospects of potential customers in half
if not more. Then without targeting your audience, you have
a bunch of senior citizens running scared with your nuclear
explosion images and tiny text.
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