Netallianz Web Design

By Larry Lam

There is no doubt that the quality of web design services has improved greatly in recent times. Over the years we have seen skills improve throughout the industry, better design techniques being used and a greater awareness on the part of web surfers of what constitutes a good or bad design.

Web design skills and techniques notwithstanding, what are some of the basics you need to get right?

Below we highlight core ideas that provide you with some guidelines:

1. Fast loading: make sure your pages to load in less than 8 seconds, even on dial-up connection. Try not to exceed 100 kb maximum file size (inclusive of graphics).

2. Make your menu options intuitive. One way is to use common names, eg. Home, About Us, Contact Us, Products, Support etc.

3. If you have many sections and need to use many menu links, then group your navigational options into relevant categories.

4. Maintain consistency in look and feel throughout your website. It keeps your users focused on your content and minimises distraction.

5. Your logo should generally appear in all pages. Link it to your homepage in all your inside pages.

6. Test your design in different browsers. You website should be designed for both 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 resolution. This would cover more than 90% of all web surfers.

Navigation

7. Provide some text navigation links at the bottom of each page. That way your surfers don’t need to scroll back up after reading a page. Text links also assist in SEO.

8. If your website requires navigation depth of 4 or more levels, use “breadcrumb trails” – this is a path from your home page to the inside pages, for example Home > Product Category > Brand > Model.

9. If your site is too big, provide Search capabilities. Websites like Google and FreeFind offers a free and powerful search engine for your site. Also consider using site maps.

10. The top of your page is usually reserved for the most important part of your content. Most people don’t read your content word for word. Give yourself a chance to get your important points across.

11. Do not make your surfers scroll horizontally. If you are using tables, set the width in percentage terms instead of a fixed pixels.

12. Make sure they is sufficient contrast between your content text and background, eg. black or dark grey text on white background.

13. Avoid long blocks of text. Use short paragraphs, bullets, headers, highlighted keywords and hyperlinks to move your visitors around your web pages.

Features

14. Avoid visible statistic counters. Powerful invisible counters are readily available with most web hosting companies.

15. Avoid unnecessary pop-ups. These are annoying for most people and are usually dismissed as ads.

16. Avoid Flash

You’ve seen those sites where the monkeys are dancing or flying across the screen asking you to click. You may think it looks cool but put yourself in the shoes of your website visitor: what does it do apart from making them wait or giving them a splitting headache?

Avoid flash unless you really need it for interactive marketing. People visit your website for information, not to have their brains scrambled by your flashing gizmos.

Research

Take time to review other websites in your peer group. Understand your own strengths and make sure these are highlighted in your website.

Both the Internet and web technology are constantly evolving. Review developments regularly and adopy a process of continuous improvement.

When you are building a website, you are making a commitment. That commitment may be to improve corporate communications, enhance marketing coverage or gain exposure for your company. Focus on the value added and ROI rather than absolute cost per se.