Website Design Guide and Tips
Designing and Building a Website
requires that you understand the various components and
technologies that you will use.
More importantly it also requires that you understanding the site purpose.
Although you may not actually get involved in designing a site , as it is common to use pre-built templates, you will need to understand the design elements and probably make changes to existing designs (customisation).
Outcomes/Results Aspects
This should be the prominent design aspect of any site. Remember the main purpose of a website isn't to look really pretty and win a design award.
If the purpose of a site is to capture an email address then the design should maximise the number of email addresses captured.
Unfortunately most web designers concentrate more on the visual aspects (below) and only pay a superficial interest to the site purpose.
If you are doing your own design or having a designer do the design ensure that it is designed around a particular result.
Main Visual and Usability Aspects
Although you may not actually get involved in designing a site , as it is common to use pre-built templates, you will need to understand the design elements and probably make changes to existing designs (customisation).
The site design consists of the page layout, colour scheme, navigation, graphics, fonts, style sheets (if used) and logo:
5 Website Design Tips
Always keep the design simple
Remember less is often more in web design. Web pages should look clean and professional and not like a Salvador Dali imitation. If your unsure then take a look at the Google homepage and see what a multi billion dollar company prefers.
Avoid Distractions and Colourful Backgrounds
Don't use or use sparingly Flash and animated graphics, sounds, too many banners or ads etc . Colourful backgrounds can make the text difficult to read, and so back text on a white background is preferred.
Keep Pages Short
Reading on the web is no as easy as reading a newspaper so keep page length to about 2 to 3 screens so as to minimize scrolling.
Don't make pages too wide
Forcing the visitor to scroll horizontally is not considered good design and so you need to keep the width sufficiently small to accommodate most of your viewers.
Screen sizes have increased over the years and so the page width of web pages has also increased. Between 840-950 px is usually fine.
Make the text large enough so that they can read it easily
Around 12px with Veranda or Arial tends to work ok. I use 12px Veranda as standard. However if your site targets an older audience then you may consider using an even larger font.
You should also consider using relative fonts as opposed to fix fonts so that the visitor can adjust the size if necessary.
What a Good Design Does for Your Website
“Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors”
(Dr Lindgaard 2006)
A good design doesn't get visitors to your site but once they are there it makes them either want to stay or to leave.
So if you have a business site and aren't happy doing the design yourself or want an opinion on the design then I recommend you consult a professional web design company.
Static or Dynamic Sites
Static ones are HTML or more commonly Today HTML/CSS. These sites are very easy to build (There are many templates available) and are simply edited using a web page editor, and are supported on all hosts.
They lack functionality e.g. How do implement a poll, comments etc. How do you change the navigation on all the web pages?
Dynamic Ones use some form of scripting (e.g. PHP,ASP) are very flexible and allow for advanced features. They are however difficult for the novice to understand.
Generally small sites (<20) with limited functionality can use static sites. The larger the site (regardless of extra functionality) then dynamic sites are better.
So you really need to have an idea of
- Roughly How big your site will be
- What functionality will be required
Take for example a restaurant website. The owner elects for a simple 5 page brochure site. With just a Introduction home page a map, directions and contact, the menu and prices.
Simple enough a static HTML site... But he finds that he is getting lots of people visiting his site and decides to implement an online booking. He would also like to issue special coupons, and run a monthly prize draw.
This is going to require some form of programming. But does his package support it? How easy is it to implement? Who is going to do it?
How websites are Built
First it is important to understand that all websites are built from a site template. This is the first web page that is created and it is the starting point for all of your web pages.
Therefore the first step is to decide on what type of site template you are going to be using.
Using a Designer
If you pay a web designer for a site you will get a few standard web pages like home, contact, Privacy policy etc, all created using a page template.
This template may be one that the web designer has built him/herself from scratch or may be a free or commercial template that they have modified.
The same considerations apply when you make your own site. You can design the site template yourself or you can obtain one and modify as necessary.
Self Built Templates
If you design your own you have far more flexibility but far more work, and you require not only design flair but also the technical knowledge.
Even though I have done it several times I wouldn't recommend this approach, as unless you have an eye for design it is very difficult to get a professional looking site.
Pre-Built Templates
There are many sources of high quality professional pre built templates both free and commercial. For a normal small business website then you should easily find a suitable one for free or low cost.
The problem with them is that they will require modification and may require software tools to edit properly.
Therefore I always recommend that you choose a simple html/CSS template.
They are an ideal choice for small websites (1-20) pages that will be fairly static. However if you think that you will be adding new features to the site (like feedback forms, newsletters, comments etc) then you should start thinking of using a content Management type system like Wordpress:
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