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Welcome to A Pot of Greens

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Web Design Basics

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If you are creating a website, now is a good time to revisit the 14 most important web-design basics.

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  1. Keep each page file size under 40K. This will ensure that your pages load reasonable quickly. If they don't, no one will stick around. 19 20
  2. Include plenty of "white space" -- open areas that don't contain graphics or text. Not enough white space means visual noise and clutter, which can be confusing to the visitor. 21
  3. Use colors that complement each other in the overall layout, and make sure there's enough contrast between the text and the background color/image. Too little contrast makes the text difficult to read. 22
  4. Full page background images that are too "busy" tend to interfere with the text. If you have one you really like, just place it on pages that don't have a lot of text (like photo galleries), or use a table with a complementary background color. 23
  5. Don't use too much animation. Unless the animated images are your content, they will only distract from whatever you want your viewers to focus on. The visual noise produced by excessive animation is tiring to the eyes, and if you don't make your own, it's all been seen before anyway. 24
  6. Break up long passages. Strings of text that are too long become visually tiring, and readers tend to give up on such content more quickly. 25
    One way to break up your text is to include headers. While people will skim right over long passages, they'll see the headers. And if you word them right, your visitors may stop to read the text beneath. Think of your headers as ad headlines; use them to create interest and draw your readers' attention to the message.
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    You can also make a long passage more readable by breaking it into shorter paragraphs. Surfers are more likely to look at a short paragraph (containing one key point) than a long paragraph (in which all of the information is strung together). Important points are often lost in lengthy paragraphs. Make each point stand on its own.
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  7. Speaking of text, don't overuse capital letters or oversized fonts. It's acceptable to employ them for emphasis every now and again, but they shouldn't make up entire paragraphs. 28
  8. Speaking of text (again), it is best not to use the full width of your page for long passages. Doing so makes it more difficult for viewers to pick up the next line as they read, and lends to that cluttered look you're trying to avoid. Studies have shown that the best line length for text is between 5.5 and 6.5 inches -- about 400 to 480 pixels wide. To accomplish that, place your test inside a table and set the table's width to 400 - 480 pixels. 29
  9. Speaking of text again and again, don't center it! You can center headlines, but centered paragraphs are the first sign of a newbie website. Most places use left-justified text (because it's the default), but I prefer full-justified text. While many people don't know you can do that in a browser (as far as I know, it's an undocumented HTML command) it looks very professional. I discovered it while playing around. Simply use a paragraph tag with an ALIGN attribute of "justify":

    30 I use this on most of my pages and highly recommend it. The only drawback is that you may have to reword a line here and there to keep some sentences from…looking too…strung………out. 31

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  10. After you spell-check your pages, proofread them yourself. Spell-checking is good for catching words you think you know how to spell, but don't (don't feel bad, it happens to everyone).Proofreading, on the other hand, catches spelling and grammatical mistakes the spell-checker won't. 33
      For instance: Eye doesn't think a smell check her wood help hear.
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  11. Keep the size of your graphics down, not only in terms of bytes, but actual dimensions as well. Graphics should complement a website, not overtake it. And of course, if they take too long to load, people will just leave. 35
  12. Don't overdo the banner ads. If I see a site with too many banners I'll hit my back button faster than one ad can load. Like most people, I don't mind an ad or two per page if there is good content, but if you try and shove them down my throat I will rebel and vote with my back button. 36
  13. Keep a consistent navigational structure throughout your site. make it easy to go back and forth between pages or, on a large site like mine, between content areas. Visitors will surf more of your site if you do. 37
  14. If you're trying to earn money from your website, keep its look consistent. Changing the background on every page may be okay for home pages, but doing so on a business site will make you look like an amateur who's trying to play at business.

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