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Basic rules of web design

By careful thinking and planning you can create a cool web design. If you are a beginner and creating your first website you can start building your website using simple software like notepad, text pad or html editor like Dreamweaver. It is only your planning that will make difference you to create a bad or good website. Spending good time thinking about your website�s design before start building it will create an excellent site that your visitors will return again and again to your site.

Make your web site easily readable

The first and most important rule in web design is that your web site should be easy to read. Choose your text and background colors very carefully. Don�t use backgrounds that make difficult to understand your text or use colors that are hard to read. Dark-colored text on a light-colored background is easier to read than light-colored text on a dark-colored background.

Don't set your text size too small (hard to read) or too large (it will appear to shout at your visitors). Use minimum of 12 point size font for text. All capitalized letters give the appearance of shouting at your visitors.

Keep left alignment to your main text, and not centered. Use center-aligned text for headlines. Make your visitors to be comfortable with what they are reading, and most text (in the West) is left aligned.

Make your web site easily navigational

Visitors should find clear hyperlinks on your site. Graphic images, such as buttons or tabs, should be clearly labeled and easy to read. Ask your web graphic designer to select the colors, backgrounds, textures, and special effects on your web graphics very carefully. It is more important that your navigational buttons and tabs be easy to read and understand than to have "flashy" effects.

Try to use link colors in your text familiar to your visitor (example: text in blue usually indicates an unvisited link and purple or maroon text usually indicates a visited link). If you elect not to use the default colors, your text links should be emphasized in some other way (boldfaced, a larger font size, set between small vertical lines, or a combination of these). Make text links unique � Don�t make them look like the same as any other text in your web pages. You do not want people clicking on your headings because they think the headings are links.

Make your visitors find what they are looking for in your website within three clicks. If not, they are very likely to click off your site as quickly as they clicked on.

Make your web site easily findable

Promote your website both online and offline so that people would know about your website. Promote your website online via search engines, directories, award sites, banner advertising, electronic magazines (e-zines) and links from other web sites. If you are not familiar with any of these online terms, then it is best that you have your site promoted by an online marketing professional.

Web sites can also be promoted offline via the conventional advertising methods: print ads, radio, television, brochures, word-of-mouth, etc. Once you have created a web site, all of your company's printed materials including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, etc. should have your URL printed on them.

Keep contact information easily findable in your website. People always like to know that there is a person at the other end of a web site who can help them in the event that:

• They need answers to questions which are not readily available on your web site;
• Some element on your site is not working and end users need to be able to tell you about it, and
• Directory editors need you to modify parts of your site to be sure that your site is placed in the most relevant category.

By giving all relevant contact information (physical address, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email address), you are also creating a sense of security for your end users. They can contact you in the way that makes them feel the most comfortable.

Make your web page layout and design consistent throughout the site

Just as in any document formatted on a word processor or as in any brochure, newsletter, or newspaper formatted in a desktop publishing program, all graphic images and elements, typefaces, headings, and footers should remain consistent throughout your web site. Consistency and coherence in any document, whether it be a report or a set of web pages, project a professional image.

For example, if you use a drop shadow as a special effect in your bullet points, you should use drop shadows in all of your bullets. Link-colors should be consistent throughout your web pages. Typefaces and background colors, too, should remain the same throughout your site.

Color-coded web pages, in particular, need this consistency. Typefaces, alignment in the main text and the headings, background effects, and the special effects on graphics should remain the same. Only the colors should change.

Make your web site quick to download

Studies have indicated that visitors will quickly lose interest in your web site if the majority of a page does not download within 15 seconds. (Artists' pages should have a warning at the top of their pages.) Even web sites that are marketed to high-end users need to consider download times. Sometimes, getting to web site such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems is so difficult and time consuming that visitors will often try to access the sites during non-working hours from their homes. If your business does not have good brand name recognition, it is best to keep your download time as short as possible.

A good application of this rule is adding animation to your site. Sure, animation looks "cool" and does initially catch your eye, but animation graphics tend to be large files. Test the download time of your pages first. If the download time of your page is relatively short and the addition of animation does not unreasonably increase the download time of your page, then and ONLY then should animation be a consideration.

Finally, before you consider the personal preferences of your web page design, you should consider all of the above rules FIRST and adapt your personal preferences accordingly. The attitude "I don't like how it looks" should always be secondary to your web site's function. Which is more important: creative expression/corporate image or running a successful business?