Design>Introduction
Website Design Introduction
"A stitch in time saves nine,"
This design turorial is intended to help you take a structured approach to the design of your site. Website design involves the look and feel of the site and end-user ease of use.
A good website starts life in the design stage. There are several aspects of the site that are formed at this stage, such as layout, color, sound, content, functionality and maintainability. No reasonable person would start to build a house without designing it first, no reasonable website builders should begin construction without a design either.
You should keep the following things in mind when designing a site:
Quick Loading
No one will use a site if it takes 5 minutes for the pages to load. Research shows that you only have 10 seconds before the average internet user will click away to another site. The way to make your site load fast is to keep it simple. Avoid large graphics, flash intros, complex Javascripts etc.
Professional
Keep your layout and colour scheme neat and simple. Using ever color in the rainbow will dazzle the site visitor. For some fun check out Vincent Flanders website - Web Pages that Suck. This will give you some idea of what NOT to include in your websites.
Easy Navigation
Make navigation consistent and as easy as possible for someone to move around your site.
Structure of the Design Tutorial
The design tutorial provides you with tips in relation to the items below when designing your website. These items are discussed in the following pages.
Further links in relation to design can be found on the Resources page of this website.
