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The Basics


Before starting on how to design a website effectively, how about clearing some basic web design concepts?


Designing Effectively


Now that you know what web design and related terms mean, lets get down to the real thing: Designing Effectively How to balance artistic design with practicality and functionality.


Use of graphics and content


Unless your website is all about graphics, how to make them, edit them or just a bunch of links to graphics websites, I suggest you use graphics sparingly, especially the flashing, twirling kind. They not only detract readers from the content, but they also take ages to load. You do not want your readers to leave your website because your graphically attractive page does not seem to load fast enough. Then again, too much text is boring. So mix and match the graphics and text on your page, having enough white space so that the page is not plain annoying.


Layout and design


While designing, keep in mind that poor layout and design will make your pages unreadable and difficult to keep your visitors on your website for long. Some of the things that make a poor design and layout:




Text that is too small to read


Color combinations of text and background that make the text hard to read


Large graphic files that take forever to load


Multiple things that blink


Unclear navigation; over complex navigation


Paragraphs of type in all caps, bold, and italic all at once


Graphics that don't fit on the screen (assuming a screen of 640x460 pixels)


Animations that never stop


Complicated frames, too many frames, unnecessary scroll bars in frames


Cluttered, not enough alignment of elements




Some of the things that make a webpage stand out from the crowd:




Stay away from bad design features listed above.


Background does not interrupt the text


Navigation buttons and bars are easy to understand and use


Good use of graphic elements (photos, subheads, pull quotes) to break up large areas of text


A large site has an index or site map


Link colors coordinate with page color


Every graphic link has a matching text link


Animated graphics turn off by themselves


Pages download quickly




All pages have the immediate visual impact within 640 x 460 pixels


Planning


Most of the time, all it takes to design your website effectively is a little planning. When designing a website, it needs to be clean, uncluttered, attractive and easy for users to read and find what they need. Begin with a webdesign plan:


what colors do you want to use?


Are these colors complimentary?


What items - text, images, data - do you want to put in your pages?


What layout do you want? Look at other websites and then decide.


Follow the above steps to get a website that speaks for itself and your business. You can always contact me for suggestions and webdesign projects.






D.zigns Enterprise Solutions provides affordable and quality ERP and Web Development Services. Tasneem is the Web Development Co-ordinator with D.zigns

dzignerweb@hotmail.com