Four Critical Web Design Rules
by: Nicholas Lapolla
When creating a new website or redesigning an existing site, there are four critical rules which the designer should follow to make the site effective and functional - and successful.
1. Easy to Read
When building a website, the first thing you need to be sure of is that your website is easy to read. When you write content, remember that most web site visitors don't read every word of a page - in fact, they only scan pages to find what they want.
Break up Your Content
Break up your pages and use headers between major ideas so people scanning your site can find what they want quickly. Use meaningful headers between each paragraph or major idea - this helps with SEO. Headers should be created with the H1 through H4 tags for SEO. Always use good writing structure. Additionally, avoid long paragraphs that run on. You should break up any long paragraphs.
Color and Fonts
To help readability, use high contrast colors between font and background. Black text against a white background may seem stark, but it is very readable. To make a website easy on the eyes, try an off-white background and a dark gray (almost black) text color.
Things to avoid with content color:
Avoid vibrant background colors like purple or yellow. Such back colors make text difficult to read.
Avoid using an image behind your text.
Avoid using bright text colors on bright backgrounds.
Fonts Matter
One simple statement covers the font issue:
Simple fonts are the best; the more fancy the font, the harder it is to read.
Since many browsers only have the standard font set, use standard fonts. In reality, there is no ""standard"", but there are certain fonts 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 use other fonts.
Standard Compliant Browser for Development
When developing and testing your site, use a Standards compliant browser like FireFox. If you develop your site to be standards compliant, it will work in most browsers, including MS Internet Explorer (IE). It is recommended that you test your site using the latest and last browser versions of IE (IE6 and IE7). To run multiple versions of IE on the same machine, TredoSoft has a free installer that will install multiple versions of IE. It works great!
2. Simplify Navigation
The menus and links make up the navigation that the visitor uses to get from page to page in a site. Always plan a site around how people will get from page to page. A visitor to your site should be able to get to what they want within three clicks of their mouse.
Multiple navigation points makes it easy to find things. Repeat the top menu and at the bottom. Also create a left or right menu.
Using links within your text to other areas on your site. You can create links so that they are good for search engine optimization (SEO). There are generally two ways to create links within your text:
The wrong way: ""For search engine optimization techniques, click here.""
The right way: ""Good techniques for search engine optimization are important to use.""
Using link text (anchor text) that describes what the link is about is the best way. Search engine web crawlers (programs that automatically index the contents of websites) visit your site, they ""read"" links. Spiders can index descriptive links into a subject or keyword category. Spiders have nothing to work with when reading a ""click here"" until it reaches the linked page.
This is Cross Linking - use it as much as possible when it makes sense to do so when writing your content.
3. Consistent Design
At most, one or two layouts should be used in your site design. As a reader browses your site, they should be able to get used to looking in the same place for your navigation, for your sub-navigation and for your content. That's all there is to say about that.
4. Lower Page Weight is Better
Page weight is the total size of a page on your site in bytes - code, text and images. Your site's page weight makes a big 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 get to the content.
What is Means to be Light
No large images. (unless the site's purpose is to showcase images, art or photos)
Fewer images are better.
Optimize images for the web at no more than 72 dpi
Use as small an image dimension as possible for the given design.
Use a table td bgcolor attribute or a background-color style attribute for solid color backgrounds.
Make gradients horizontal or vertical (not diagonal) so that you can use a small image ""strip"" and repeat it.
How ""Heavy"" Should a Web Page be?
Certain studies show that 64K is a good maximum webpage size. 64K is a maximum, however it is still, in my opinion, really big! The smaller the page, the better. 25K is good, 15K is even better. There is a balance between design and function. It is a good idea to focus more on function.
Try putting pages on your web host server as you build your site so you can test it as you go. For pages online, you can test the page weight to be sure you are on track.
Ways to make pages lighter:
Use linked style sheets
Use DIVs instead of TABLEs where possible
Use simple repeating backgrounds for effect
Summary
Visitors to your website should be able to find what they are looking for within about three clicks. Making a site easy to read with consistent page design, and easy to navigate will make it easy to find information. You will be on the way to building a readable, effective, functional and hopefully successful website if you follow these rules.
About The Author
Nicholas LaPolla has been a web applications developer for 11 years. He created
http://AcmeWebResources.com to help others build or improve, market, and monitize their websites with a focus on web design, website seo / internet marketing, and working to make money online.
Copyright 2007, all rights reserved.
