8 Tips for Designing a Great Website Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons … will they match my shoes, my handbag or my tie? Are you stuck in a maze of buttons, headings, bullets, sub-headings and colour schemes? STOP!!!! Take a deep breath and read some practical tips for professional looking websites. 1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it. If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page. The most common colour schemes include: - Red, yellow and white - Blue and white - Red, grey and white - Blue, orange and white - Yellow, grey and white. If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists. 2. Use templates. Can’t find a website you really like? Another option is to choose a template. There are many templates or pre-set designs. These come as part of your web design software (such as FrontPage) or you can check out some websites that specialise in designing templates. Visit: www.web4business.com.au emplates1.htm www.newtemps.com www.website-templates-resale-rights.com www.123webtemplatesandmore.com 3. Provide an easy to use navigation system. This is one of the most important issues to consider when designing a website. You need to ensure your visitors can find what they are looking for easily. Most websites either display their navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it’s best to stick with it. It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top. 4. Don’t go overboard on special effects Whilst it is ok to have one or two special effects to jazz up your website, spinning graphics and logos often distract your visitor from the content, not to mention they can take too long to download. Your visitors may click away even before your spinning logo finishes loading. 5. Backgrounds Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, ie. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light. 6. External Links It is a good idea to open links to other websites in a new window. That way your visitors can easily return to your site when they are finished browsing the external link 7. Site Map & Search Feature If you website is more than 15 pages, it is useful to have a site map or a “Search†feature to ensure your visitors can easily find what they’re looking for. 8. Content is King While it is important that your website looks clean and professional, it is far more important that you concentrate your efforts on the content and promotion. If you want a professional website, things to stay away from include: 1. Flash intros, revolving globes, bevelled line separators, animated mail boxes 2. Loads of pop up or pop under boxes 3. Autoplay music. Allow your customer to play music only if they choose. 4. Hit counters of the free variety, which say “you are 27th visitor†5. Date and time stamps, unless your website is updated daily or weekly 6. Busy backgrounds. Don’t sweat the small stuff and get yourself focussed on what to include on the website and the best way to promote it. We will cover these topics in future articles.
Great Tips... I would also like to share a Few Tips To Optimize Your Web Design: A website is a reflection of the business so this reflection needs to be impressive for more promising results. For making a website professional and attractive you can seek the services of a professional web designer. What things are needed and in what order? Read the lines below. • Getting a domain name is the first step. • You can also get support from design templates in the start of your online business. • The customers’ perspective should be considered in your web pages for long lasting success. • Use text as a power to capture the attention of users as well as search engines for higher ranking. • The website should contain less numbers of pages in order to give a smart look but all the pages should carry relevant and important information. • The use of advertising language in the web content should be kept at minimum. It will help in building a professional image among users or prospective customers. • The perfect mix of audio and video support should be used at your website. Keep a balance between both. • The quality of the content should be perfect along with keeping the originality intact. • Activate a spell and grammar check to the web content. • Complete detail about contacting you should be provided to the site reader. • Make right use of fonts, colors and other formatting tools.
Not bad tips at all will definetely help out alot of people, myself I'm certainly not a design pro but I'm getting alot better. Colour schemes are something that I learnt at first and is something that is a complete must for any site. Now onto programming what I don't know isn't worth knowing! Thanks, Glen
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Webdesign often comes down to the basic fact in design that less often is more. And of course it takes time to get a feel for what works and what doesn't. However I want to emphasize the tip on sticking to certain colours. Very often that is the big difference between a crappy design that looks like something a 10-year old has made, and a professional one. Stick to a few colours that work well together. You can for example take a photo (with nice colours) that you like and use photoshop to determine exactly what the major colours there are, and use them with each other in your design, since they obviously are proven to work well together on your photo. It's not idiot proof of course but it can be helpful.
Hey, guys Thanks for sharing such wonderful tips, here are also some to add: Define the content of Web pages Use web design graphics and colors, vary the font size to enhance the website, but make sure that the page will also work in regular text. Always include a web design alternative text to the graphic elements, as some users turn off their graphics to make the website load faster. Reduce the text to a minimum. Many people are turned off to a page full of text. Use web design styles such as headings and subheadings to organize the content and make sure styles are used consistently. Use horizontal lines to visually separate sections of the document. Use appropriate background and font colors.
Totally agree with you guys. But want to add four more advises: 1. Social networking icons (twitter tweet me, facebook like, stumble, buzz, and more) to help promote your project outside your website 2. Add some individuality to your site. The branding, layout,... everything on the page has to say about the way you are doing your business; That's a great chance to be ahead of your competitors. Show your personal business model, make an accent on 0% failure, 100% satisfaction guarantee... 3. Imagery. Make sure to use rich, clean, self-explanatory and yet appropriate graphics 4. Feedback forms. These can be simple contact forms, guestbook forms, places to leave posts, etc. Troyj listed some resources for good templates, I would like to add more: - www .flashmint. com with its collection of xml flash and flash cms templates - fancycms. com with its collection of flash content management components and templates Let me know if these were helpful for you.
Some really good tips. I'd also like to add that it is imperative that you know your target audience and understand the strategic goals of the web site. This I believe is the most important first step when creating a web site. I myself despise templates. You are at the mercy of someone else's coding habits and it can waste time (and money) trying to figure out what their intentions were when creating the template. I have a nice repertoire of templates I have created from scratch that are clean, fast and compliant. That way I present some layout options to my clients and can quickly get started from there. One other thing not mentioned here that A LOT of designers miss. Make sure you keep your clients involved in the process the entire way. Explain to them in a language they understand. EDUCATE YOUR CLIENTS. I can't stress that enough. They come to you because they don't have the experience. If you keep them involved it benefits both you and them and helps to reach the intended goals.
Hi., 1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it. 2. Use templates. 3. Provide an easy to use navigation system.
Great information! I only wish that I had known this information b/f making such a fool out of myself with my current design. I do know how important website design is, but ignorants like me take forever trying to accomplish what we desire with what we don't know.