Site Design considerations
I, be an aspiring web site designer, often consider
many things for the layout of my site. I hope to help others
design sites by putting my design decisions, and rationale,
here. Got any comments? Be sure to mail me at gomf@angelfire.com.
I'll accept any chance to be open-minded about design.
Frame Sidebar vs. Table Sidebar- I've tried
both, and for a while, I had a frame sidebar, due to my constant
changing of the sidebar content. Then, two things got me to
the format that I use today. One, I got a program called Dreamweaver,
which allows me to update all of my pages to a template. Second,
I totally removed the sidebar totally. I found that people only
look at one section at a time, so I built the navigation to
go only to the basic sections. How often does someone need to
go from the Guide to Route 12 to my awards? I'd say that's awefully
rare. Thus, my site design reflects this logic.
Odd Pastel coloring- I've seen soooooo
many sites with one of the two formats:
- Black background, red text. Usually lots of skulls and lightening
bolts.
- Predominantly blue background, images. Verdana font.
So, I've used a design that (as far as I know)
is pretty original. I like this design, and I find it pretty
uplifting.
No affiliations/ Button Exchanges- This
is a thing I abolutely HATE from the forty or so Square sites
out there. Not only are many of the sites the same content,
they also links to three or four other similar sites! Although
the idea is a noble one, it's execution is horrendous.
It's a one-man operation- Although it's
a lot of work for this site, I'm pretty sure about not "hiring"
other people. Lots of sites (especially Square sites) have a
staff of five or ten people, and it seems that the majority
of them just post news. So, in the hope of not contributing
to the trend myself, I've kept this page run by me only.
5MB at Angelfire vs. 25MB at Geocities-
For me, this one's simple. Although Geocities does offer more
space and options, it forces you to have a pop-up banner on
evey page (which, by the way, no-one actually reads) as well
as a manidtory floating "G" on the bottom right of
every page,. Angelfire's linking back is completely optional,
and there are no pop-ups. As a result of my satifaction with
Angelfire, I've reccomended it to dozens of people. This is
something that I feeel is good buisness. I'm sure that Angelfire
recieve much more revenues from the dozen people that I've reccomended
than the revenues from idoitic self-promotion of geocities.
No huge paid Avertisements or Link Banners-
I'm sure this site could go commercial. But, I don't currently
need money, nor is my development of my web design abilites
hinged upon my ability o make money. Also, even simple banners
are ugly, and content-killing. I'm in no rush for this site
to get popular, so I don't have thirty or so huge "Vote
for me on the top 10/50/45/66/69/99/150/123141 POKeMON sites!!!
Now! Or I'll be soooo unmotivated, I won't ever work on this
page!". I figure that my good content will eventually
win over the sites with a bunch of cheats and a list of the
names of the POKeMON in the game.
Light vs. Dark background- I touched on
this before, but the reason I choose light doesn't stem solely
from the black/red combo overuse. When black background is used,
it tends to serve as a decoration. Thus, the page look more
"full". Other colors tend to pop-up out of black,
as well. So why do I use white? Because it forces me to use
good design and coloring. Without that extra distraction that
balck provides, the rest of my design stands out. White background
also allows for the pale pastels that I use on this site, as
black makes these colors look awkward and sometime, ugly.
No ultra-slick design- I try to avoid web cliches on
my pages, and although I'm certainly not stunningly innovative
in my design, I do present what I feel is a fresh layout and
stylization. One very, very common idea is that super-slick
design means a good site. There are only a few people that can
pull off this difficult design sucessfully. The majority of
the "ultra-slick" sites are junk, due to people that
over estimate their ability. I, being unexperienced, realize
my limitaions, and I don't try to create a site that has this
fast-moving, motion-intense design. Bandwidth is another consideration.
I am perfectly capable of creating fantastic, mobile graphic
animations. But, they are generally way oversized for the web.
So, I don't punish those with slower modems.
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