Thursday, May 13, 2010

Dos and Don'ts of Web Designing

Some important dos and don'ts for effective web designing

Dos:

Fast loading web site designs: Designs should be well-optimized for the web and should not take more than 15 seconds to load.

Design for all Screen Resolutions: Design your site according to all screen resolutions. The best way to do this is to design your site in terms of percentage and not pixels. Stretch layouts that fit any screen resolution ensure a visually appealing and professional site.

Use readable and professional looking fonts: Always try to use common and professional web fronts should be available in visitors' computer else web site will use the default font which is worst. Don't use Comic Sans and other fancy fonts rather use most common fonts like: Arial and Verdana.

Make your text large enough to read: Use large text for the readers keeping your head CSS rules, 12 or 13px for Arial, 11x12 for Verdana

Use of white space: Make a good combination of white space and your content in order to give a sense of professional page-make. Spaciousness, increase line spacing and overall neatness inculcate readability.

Put a Menu on every page: Clever web designing demands menu on every page to understand the content at a glance and make navigation easy and choiceable.

Include a way to get back to the home page, on every page: When users get lost in the web spider, they try to come back at first so include a way on every page to get back to the home page.

Remove dead external links periodically: If you link to any external site use software to automatically check your links to external site to see any of them have snapped.

Clear Navigation: Your important links should be placed on prominent places, preferably right on top.

Make links blue or underlined, or both: Use blue and underline to the links instead of using words like "link" or "here" or "click here" as the link text.

Optimize your HTML & script code: Make sure that your site shouldn't have any unwanted tags or unused scripts.

Compress your image file: If the graphics takes much time to load it becomes annoying to the readers so get some graphic software to compress your file. GifBot, Windows: HVS GifCruncher and JPEG Wizard. Macintosh: GraphicConverter is very beneficial for this purpose.

Minimize the use of images: It is wise enough to use simple designs to keep your site simple and neat.

Juxtapose contrasting colors and simple backgrounds: To make your text easy to read and get prominent effect, juxtapose contrasting colors and simple backgrounds. Most acceptable color combinations are as follows:

• Red, yellow and white
• Blue and white
• Red, grey and white
• Blue, orange and white
• Yellow, grey and white.

If your company has a logo with particular color- start form there for color combination.

Use templates: Use some websites that specialize in designing templates

Search Feature & Site Map: In case of more than 15 pages using of Search Feature & Site Map is beneficial for it ensures the visitor- particulars they are looking for.

Test your links at least once in a month.

Put your contact info, or a link to it, on the top and/or bottom of every page

Include a "Last Modified" date on the top or bottom of your pages

Don'ts

- Don't use flash intros, revolving globes, animated boxes, and beveled line separators.
- Don't clutter your pages with big, bulky images that take much time to load
- Don't use image backgrounds and busy backgrounds.
- Don't annoy your visitors with pop-up windows
- Don't use framesets.
- Don't make your page too wide
- Don't type more than a few words in all caps
- Don't underline words if they are not links
- Don't steal content
- Don't uses hit counters of the free variety
- Don't use auto play music, rather let it be done by the audience of their cup of tea
- Don't go overboard on special effects

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