The insides of design
By
VendorSeek
Web design is not just appreciated by the originators, but also by the rest of us who are not endowed with the web design know-how. There are deeds of design that can be labeled laudable and execrable. The following is a list of things we appreciate about web design and mention of some dents in design.
Legibility Gone Off The Ledge Bad 'fonting' (I just coined the term-I hope all of you refer to me in the future while using it) is definitely a designing faux pas. Small and frozen font sizes seem to be a negative aspect of design. We tend to steer clear of pages with low contrast between text and background too.
Put Your Name in the Game You want the users to know exactly whom they are dealing with. Putting your name and logo on every page is a good deed in design (except on the homepage-the user is already there-duh). Making the logo a link back to the home page is a good practice of good designing.
Looney Links Some links are more confusing than convenient. Some links are not very overt. Either they are not colored or underlined to differentiate from the linkable and non-linkable. Other links are not clearly outlined as to what may be at the other end. Links are like avenues through the Internet, if you make them obscure, you are causing traffic and the navigator is going to make a wrong turn somewhere.
Shed Light on the Search Some web sites are spectacular, but they could be as long as a hundred pages. Depending on the nature of the site, long doesn't mean wrong, but make sure that you supply a handy 'search' option. This will help the user try to better define their navigational enterprise. It is not fun to look through every page, especially if you know what you are looking for from the beginning.
Failed Flash Flash was a fad that happened (and failed) a long time ago. Designers know not to use them (the good ones anyway) and clients do not request them (the smart ones anyway). If your web site is lacking some pizzazz, then do it by adding useful content and construction. Your site should be informative not so much decorative.
S-P-E-L-L It Out Simplicity should not connote simple-minded. Having straightforward headlines and page titles are encouraged. Hopefully, you want your visitors to know what your site and pages are all about, so help the process. If you were inviting friends over for dinner you wouldn't take down all the road signs before they came would you (actually, that would be funny, but I digress)? Make the navigation experience pleasurable and stress free for the visitors.
Keep Content Under Control The content cascading your pages should be short, easy to scan, and to the point. You want your content to showcase useful information and not be marred by too much marketing. Your visitors may not be 'down' with specified lingo, so don't use it in your pages; put things in their terms, not yours.
Facilitate Visitors' Footing While your visitors are 'walking' through your site, you want to promote their trip by breaking things up for them. Think about if you are reading a page and are confronted with a single-spaced page; this can be quite intimidating and daunting to peruse through. Using headings and sub-headings to chunk the information will be well appreciated by users of your site.
Sabotaged Search Going along with having a search option inserted into your web site, make sure that it actually is working effectively. Investing in the proper software is important, especially when the search option comes into play. You don't want to turn off your visitor by disappointing them when their search goes awry.
Helping Hypertext Be a good host to visitors of your site. Don't try to fit everything about a specific product or topic together. Use hypertext to structure the content space, so if your visitor is interested in something specifically they can carry on and if they are, they are not stuck doing so.
Taking the 'in' Out of Incompatible Enough people today use Firefox and other minority browsers like Opera and Safari. Don't leave them out in the cold by making them incompatible with your platform. You want to draw the bigger crowd to your site, so get rid of impediments like "you have to be at least this tall to get on this ride" and "no shirt, no shoes, no service," you want to welcome everyone.
Photos Are Fine If you are a site that is selling product, you especially want to have photos available on your site. Don't overdo it though, create the option of supplying a small picture and then if the customer wishes, they may look at a bigger, more detailed picture of the product. Creating the option to rotate and zoom in on the product is definitely encouraged. Have the initial shot of the product be small and then have the option of looking more closely.
Form Follies Users are often confronted with numerous questions and options. Consider eliminating any questions that are not necessary like a salutation (Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc.). Any fields that are not truly needed should not be there. When the form is displayed on the screen, have the keyboard set right into the first field for convenience. One of the biggest helps could be flexible input of phone, credit, social security numbers, etc. Have the customer have the option of either putting everything in at once or chunking them while inputting. Make sure your page accepts and recognizes international zip codes and the like; it would be unfortunate if you lost a customer from Canada because the zip code was not recognized.
Equal Opportunity You want to make sure that your site is accessible to everyone, especially users with disabilities. You would not want to lose potential customers because they have a disability like blindness or deafness. These people are to be respected as much as the next customer and it is appreciated if they are taken into consideration, because not all web sites do this for them.
Flaunt Your Information You want your visitors to not only know your company name and web address, but also make sure that you supply them with company phone numbers (fax if available), and especially a physical address. Most customers will become weary of sending their money to a place that has no physical address. You want your visitors to know that you are a credible business and that you encourage their contact with you.
Follow the Leader- Then Take the Lead Look at the popular web sites; especially ones that are in your line of business to see the things that they are doing right. Emulate their structure and then, when the time comes, step it up a notch and leave them in the dust. If they are the most popular, they must be doing some good things, ideas are free rights to the public, so take some from them and then add a little spice of your own.
|
|
|
Vendor Login
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
