February 2002 — Features
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Building a Great Web Site
- What is the purpose of this site?
- What are your goals? What are you trying to tell your visitors? These answers will help you begin to focus your page.
- Who is your target audience?
- How is your audience going to view your page? Is your audience members of the business community who will be accessing the site with a T1, or folks at home with a slow modem? Your site should be fast to prevent visitors from losing patience and leaving too soon. When considering speed, you should also think about browsers and plug-ins, which tend to slow loading time in displaying a site.
- How will you attract and keep visitors? Placement is key. Not all users have huge monitors, so you will want to place the most important elements at the top of the page. Consider the first screen as the front page of a newspaper, where all the important information g'es. Since most people read from left to right, and usually look in the upper left-hand corner first, the most important items should go there.
- What colors should you use? Consider which colors best support your goal and whether they are part of the 216 universal color palette. But remember, just because you have access to 216 colors d'esn't mean you should use them all. Doing so will slow down your site and make it harder to read. Take readability into consideration. The type should sit comfortably on the background. White type on a black background is readable, but a light gray on black is more comfortable for the eye. Go for maximum contrast, then back off a bit. Keep in mind that the bigger the type, the easier it is to read; the longer the line length, the harder it is to read.
- How do you plan to place information on the page? Wide margins around content works very well. White space helps the readers' eyes rest on what is important, whether it is an image or words. Keep the design uncluttered and the concept focused.
Keeping It Simple
Once you've answered these questions and defined your goals, the next step is to structure your setup on paper. The home page should organize the entire Web site. Every page should be consistent as far as icons, banners and layout. The logo should appear in the same location on each page. The feel of your site should match the type of content displayed in order to convey information effectively to the user.
The Web site should be simple. Too many frames, animation, blinking text, fonts, graphics, sizes and colors will frustrate the user, causing them to go elsewhere. Keeping the site simple will also allow it to load faster, helping the user quickly determine what is relevant. In addition, text can be divided with lines or formatted with lists to make the information as easy to read as possible.
Navigational Rules
If you are setting up a Web site with different pages, links or frames, it is important to follow some simple navigational rules. As you know, most sites arrange pages in a hierarchy; there's a reason for this. As surfers navigate a site, they need to know where they are. They need to know how to proceed down the page, across it or return to the top. If surfers have difficulty navigating through your site, they won't take the time to get their bearings, they'll simply go somewhere else. They'll remember your site is difficult to navigate and won't return. Creating a navigable Web site requires linking pages in a logical way. Follow these guidelines:
