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Ten Tips to a
Better Site Design
Introduction to Site Design
It has been said for ages that "first impressions
last a lifetime", and as we enter the information age, this old saying
still rings true. In today's dynamic, competitive Internet world,
creating a base of regular visitors is one of the keys to success, and
the design of your site is extremely important because it is, in a
very real sense, the first impression you make on millions of Internet
users worldwide. An attractive, user-friendly site design can be the
difference between success and failure, and therefore a good amount of
time should be devoted to making your site as good as possible.
Designing a good site, however, is a lot more difficult than merely
dragging and dropping some pictures and text onto a page and arranging
it to look nice. Successful sites must try to come up with the perfect
marriage of form and function, making sure that neither component is
lacking or in excess.
Tip One: What is Your Site About?
Perhaps the most important thing to keep in
mind when designing your site is that there is by no means one
site design that is best. In fact, the nature of your site, its
content, and its theme should all be carefully considered in order
to ensure that your site has the look and feel you desire, without
sacrificing the user-friendliness that will keep the hits
streaming in. So before you open up Dreamweaver and start creating
tables, and inserting text blocks and images, sit back and think
about what it is you want your website to portray, and how you
want visitors to feel when they visit your site. If your site is a
personal website, think in terms of how you can exhibit your
personality and style. If your site is a commercial website, think
in terms of how you want your customers to feel about your
products and services. A good deal of planning beforehand will
allow you to choose the correct theme for your website, saving you
the headache of going back and trying to get it right afterwards.
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Tip Two: Research, Research, Research
After you have come up with the look and feel
that you feel is most appropriate for your website, the next step
is to research what other websites with similar objectives have
done. Spend some time looking at existing websites, and make notes
of their respective positives and negatives; then think of how
your site can incorporate the positives, while avoiding the
negatives. You can learn a lot about what works and what doesn't
by looking at the layout, color scheme, text, and images of other
websites, and then use that knowledge to get the most out of your
site. |
Tip Three: Planning
Once you have completed your research, and come
up with an idea of what you want your site to look like, the next
step is to plan your site. The best way to do this is to start by
drawing a sitemap, covering all of the pages you plan to create.
By drawing a sitemap, you will be able to see clearly exactly how
your site will work, and which links you will have to create to
make it work the way you planned. Drawing a site map is easy and
will save you a lot of time in the long run. For an example of a
site map, please see below |
Tip Four: User Friendliness
Regardless of how beautiful your site is, if
users can not navigate it, they will simply find another site. Try
to lay out your site in a clear, logical manner, and avoid using
image-based mouseover links. This will help ensure that your site
is easy to navigate, and will still leave you plenty of room to
add your personal design touches |
Tip Five: Images/Page size
As we all know, images add a lot to a website,
but it is important to understand that they also add a lot of size
to web pages, size which can increase loading time. As a result of
this fact, you should try to use the minimum amount of images on
each page. Try to limit your pages to a total of 30kb, including
text, background images, and images. This will ensure that all
pages will be loaded in about 5 seconds, even if the user happens
to be using a dial-up connection.
Another
thing to consider when deciding the amount of images to use on
your web pages is that each file on a web page requires a separate
HTTP request to the server. What this means is that using a lot of
small images, which add up to less than 30kb is still going to
slow down your site considerably. |
Tip Six: Tables
When using tables in the creation of your site,
it is important to make sure that you do not use one table for the
majority of your site. If you do use one table, users will not be
able to see any of your content until the entire table has been
loaded. In order to avoid this problem, break your page into at
least two tables. The top table should contain your page header
and some links, while the bottom table should contain the
remaining content. This will allow the user to see part of your
page quickly, so that they do not get discouraged by a long wait.
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Tip Seven: Browsers
When you have finished designing your site, be
sure to take a look at it in several different browsers. Sometimes
your "perfect" design will look atrocious when viewed with a
different browser, which means you will have to go back and fix
your errors. Still, it is much better to catch your own errors
before your visitors do. |
Tip Eight: Navigation Bars
One of the most helpful trends in web design
that has gained popularity in the last few years is the in-site
navigation bar, which helps users know exactly where they are in
your site. Typically a navigation bar looks something like this:
You are
at: Home>My Hobbies>Sports
This
means that you are currently in the Sports page of the My Hobbies
Section of your site. Navigation bars are by no means essential to
a good website, but are a helpful tool to make your site more
user-friendly to users. |
Tip Nine: Plug-ins
Over the past year or so, a number of plug-ins
have been developed allowing you to add advanced graphics and
animation on to your website. Before you load up your site with
these animated graphics, it is important to understand that most
users do not have these plugins installed on their computers, nor
do they have the patience to download them before viewing the
site. The exception to this rule is Macromedia's Shockwave Flash
Plug-in, which is installed on most computers. |
Tip Ten: Meta Tags
One of the most important things not to forget
when designing your site is the importance of meta tags. Site
description and keyword Meta tags are the most important factors
in getting recognized by search engines, which will bring your
site more hits. When writing your site description remember to
keep it clear, concise, and to the point, and do not load it up
with keywords, because it should make sense when displayed on a
search engine results page.
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