Are you interested in producing creative and useful web design? Do you have a lot of goals that you want to reach but are lacking in the area of how to design websites? If you answered “yes,” then this article is for you. It will help you learn the fundamentals of website design.
Color combinations are key in branding your website. You need to ensure that the text on your site is easily readable against your chosen background. There is data that shows that people have an easier time reading dark text on a light background. The opposite is still readable, but not optimal. Ask your friends to give you feedback on the colors you choose.
Broken Links
Before publishing websites, check them for broken links. Error pages only cause visitor frustration. You can manually check links or use a program that will find broken links for you.
Let users cancel actions if they desire. This could be anything from filling out forms to registering for email newsletters. Visitors do not appreciate not being able to cancel things that they are not interested in completing, and they may not wish to return to your site for future purchases.
Make sure you have the right background. Remove obstacles to easy text reading by avoiding things like GIF backgrounds that move. Choose a background that complements your site instead, and visitors will easily understand they message you want to convey.
Your front page should be simple. A lot of people will only look at the front page. That’s where they are making the decision whether to spend more time on your site. Be clear about what your company is about, but be concise.
Include photos into your website. Having personal pictures on your site makes your site appear more user friendly. Folks will be more apt to stay on your site when they look forward to viewing all of your photos.
Understand what your purpose is. If you’re going to have a blog site or something similar, you have to be sure things are done to learn about that subject before posting anything. Providing misleading information to your consumers will only cause them to leave your site. Knowing your subject is very important when having a blog.
Allow your visitors to contact you through email, a contact form, comments or social media. You will learn what is missing or misunderstood, and be able to make changes as needed. This lets your visitors feel like they are actively involved in your site and will want to visit again.
File Sizes
Other than the aesthetics of your site design, one of the most important things to consider is keeping all your file sizes to a minimum. There is a direct correlation between file sizes and page load times. You want your website to load very quickly when potential clients visit. The other factor to bear in mind is not all visitors access through high-speed connections. Continue to test your site to make sure it will load quickly, even with a dial-up connection.
Optimize your site for older versions of Internet Explorer (IE7 and IE8). While it is often viewed as a sub par browser, a large number of users are still using old versions of this browser. Unfortunately, many aspects of your site may not be compatible or displayed properly due to outdated rendering standards, so you may have to create some fixes for the elements that do not work properly. One tip of utter importance when dealing with the older Internet Explorer browsers is to educate yourself on the bug referred to as box model that haunted them for years.
Test early and frequently. It is essential to do usability tests early in the developing phase. Keep testing, improving and adding current content for a winning website.
Always spend a few minutes proofreading content before posting it to your website. The goal is to have people go through the information with ease. Errors in written content not only cause a site to look unprofessional, but it also slows down readers and causes them to lose interest.
To make the most of your site’s space, you need not assume that every single pixel must be accounted for and packed with images, text and videos. It improves readability, gives your content the focus of the page and allows the mind of your reader to be relaxed and absorb what you’re trying to get across.
Search Box
Be sure to make your search box is near the top of web pages and has at least 27 characters. Ensure that the button which causes the search clearly states “search,” not “go” or “submit.” This will ensure your search box can be easily seen, used, and assist your visitors in discovering what they’re searching for.
Error check, or validate, your web pages to avoid problems. Some editors, especially ones that don’t require you to directly input code, add extraneous code to your webpages that may slow your site down or cause it to work incorrectly. When using those programs, it’s important to take the extra step and validate your code through a validation service. It doesn’t have to cost anything; the W3C, or consortium for the World Wide Web, provides a free validation service.
Now that you gained some more knowledge on website creation are you feeling a little more confident on this subject? Use what you’ve learned in the article above, to build a killer website.