Web Design in Detail

When it comes to web design, very close attention should be paid to every aspect of the pages layout, the navigation, and the overall look.

 

Keep in mind the theme, and what the site will be doing, once published, be it ecommerce, news broadcasting, or blog.

 

Here are some pointers that you can use as guides, to make sure your website not only looks well, but performs well too.

1) Only use a splash page as a lead gatherer.

 

Splash pages are those pages that have almost no content, except for a few lines, maybe a picture, and a subscriber box. These are only for email address collecting purposes, and are a specialized process. Unless your entire website is built around the squeeze page method, then don’t use them.

 

They can be a web design challenge, due to the fact that their owner may insist on continuous tweaking after installing.

 

2) Drop those flashing banners

 

It pains me to see so many of my students ignoring my advice, and plastering their websites with banner ads. There are few things more annoying than a well designed site, with good navigation, covered in banners, like it has some form of Internet disease. Get rid now, and stick to clear web design.

 

3) Use clear, simple navigation

 

The navigation system is paramount to the success of your website. This may sound stupid, but robots also need to have the quickest and easiest way to discover all your web pages, for SEO. Keep your navigation simple, and easy to follow.

 

4) Let users know where they are

 

Do not confuse your visitors by leading them down a series of links, to a page, like leading a child through a maze. Try the silo method of navigation, or use a simple breadcrumb trail to allow your visitors a quick route back to a page they want to check again. Basic web design elements, but often ignored.

 

5) Never force audio video on your visitors

 

When you click on a page, and it really wipes its feet when loading, you may sense what is coming next. The web designer has made the video load on entry, and users should be given the choice. The same applies to audio, give surfers a choice! These multimedia players have controls that can easily be displayed on your web pages.

 

6) Forget flash on page load

 

Get your designer head into the real world, and think of the practicalities of the millions of web surfers that have not got a broadband connection. Flash is a great tool, but it is still to resource hungry on a page load for any dialup user. We want to please our visitors, not annoy the hell out of them.

 

Keep your videos separate from your loading times, and keep all those poor people with slow connections on side.

 

7) Remain compliant

 

Keep up to date with the latest trends, gizmos and gadgets, but always try to keep your site as compliant as possible with w3, access and policies. Display a privacy policy, have a feedback section and follow the rules of mainstream website etiquette, for user friendly web design.