Basic Web Design Advice Anyone Can Use

http://www.programmingisnothard.com/topics/the-iron-yard--4
Basic Web Design Advice Anyone Can Use
Great web design is essential these days to having a great online business. This can place you ahead of your competitors quite easily if done correctly. Not everyone knows what goes into a great web design though and that's where these tips come in handy.

Listed below are some things to consider when designing for the web.

Make sure your text and background has the proper contrast. There's evidence showing that white text on a black background is easiest for most people to read, but other colors are fine so long as they're readable. Also keep in mind that people with visual impairments may not be able to read your site if the contrast is poor. Check to see if your site complies with various contrast standards using the tool at http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html .

Web designers gave frames the boot in the 90's. Frames were terrific in the burgeoning web design days, but they had their problems too. Using frames makes it hard for viewers to bookmark your website and can make scrolling a chore. A number of better ways exist that make it easy for users to navigate your site.

Don't use splash pages for your site unless required by law, and especially don't use a Flash intro. Most people just want to get to your content as quickly as possible, and don't care to look at useless splash pages. If you have some amusing content that you absolutely want visitors to see, integrate it into the homepage instead.

Don't disable the visitor's right-click functionality. Some sites do this in order to prevent people from copying and pasting text or saving images from the site. The thing is, it doesn't work and disables other useful functions. OCR can be used to capture text from such sites, and grabbing images is as simple as taking a screenshot.

Break up long text blocks. Having a huge wave of text is unnecessary for any site, especially when you can break it up by using images, or even separating it into different pages. Boring your viewers will only make them leave, so keep things as simple and fresh as possible.

To help keep your site visitors happy, do not underline words. Underline words on the internet signifies that the word is a clickable link. If you have too many words on your pages that are underlined with being clickable links, then your visitors will be frustrated after continuously trying to click on them.

Make text easy to ready by using colors that contrast or backgrounds that are easy to read text on. When your text is harder to read because the background or text color creates eye strain or portions of text that are unreadable, site visitors are less likely to stick around.

To be updated on the new web design tricks, you should join an online forum. When joining these message boards you meet people who usually have an understanding of all the new web design technology. Without this new web design technology you could end up with a site that is completely outdated.

Add a search feature to a website. When visitors come to your website, they want to easily be able to find what they are looking for. A keyword search feature will make it easy for people to find the right page on your site, especially if the website you are designing is very complex.

While there will be plenty of attractive designs and strategies, you need to use your own imagination when designing your site. Come up with your very own features and style, possibly enhancing ideas you lift from other websites that impress you. This is essential for you if you hope to be the best designer you can be.

As you have seen, great web design can make or break your online presence. It can set you apart from the crowd and make you successful if it's done correctly. However, there are things to keep in mind when designing for web application.

Using the above tips can give you what you need to design on the web effectively.