Pages

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Making A Website? Heed This Advice For A Solid Design

By Paulina Cordas


Many people believe that designing a website is difficult, but that in only true if you do not take the time to learn how to build one. Like pretty much everything done on the web today, there are many software programs available which can make web design really simple.

For multimedia presentations, take advantage of the new HTML5 standard. Although HTML5 isn't quite as robust for animation and games as Flash, it has the advantage of working stably on mobile phone browsers, including those contained in Apple hardware. HTML5 is also quite a bit leaner than Flash, so load times will improve, as well.

Make sure your webpages aren't too long. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if your most important content is "below the fold," it may not even be read. If you have a lot of related content that needs to stay together, consider breaking it up into sections and adding links to each section.

Avoid creating user interface (UI) controls that mislead your visitors. These controls include elements, widgets and more that create an interactive experience, such as a link, drop-down list or button. You do not want to make visitors think that clicking on an underlined word or phrase for example, will lead to a new page if it is not actually linked to something else. When your visitors have expectations of something working a certain way and it does not, they are more likely to assume there is something wrong with your site and leave.

Every page of your website should have a way to return to the main page, or "home." This ensures that when users navigate deeper into your site, they always have a way to start over if they lose place of what got them to the page they are on currently.

Don't load rich content automatically. Rich content mainly refers to music and videos, but anything other than text or graphics qualifies. Many people browse in work environments where sounds suddenly playing is a big problem. Also, many people find such rich content annoying in general. Rich content should require some interaction from the user before playing.

Learning some basic HTML will help you add some interesting extras to your site. For example, you can have words that follow your cursor, or a banner that flashes important information. Make sure to change the colors and fonts occasionally, so you seem more involved with the web site and its design.

Keep your front page as simple as possible. People shopping around will immediately decide whether they will use your site or not, simply by how your front page looks. Be descriptive about what your business does, and your unique offerings, but keep everything else to a minimum to avoid distraction.

In conclusion, it is the truth that anybody should be extremely concerned with web design and how they are implementing it for a variety of good reasons. Ideally the tips provided in this article are going to either provide you with new perspectives or some great reinforcement advice for your web design techniques.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment