5 Do's And Don'ts of Designing a Website

Designing a website is a lot easier than it once was. There are all kinds of online tools and different software that you can use to build a site, but beware, it's easy to get carried away with fancy fonts and bright colours. Don't lose sight of what really matters - your visitors. Different websites have different goals. You might use yours to sell, to inform or to get customers to contact you. Whatever your goals, they need to be effective. Here are some do's and don'ts to follow when you design your website.

Do include valuable content

Web surfers won't take the time to scour your site for its valuable information. They want everything to jump out at them, here and now. So that's exactly what you have to give them. To do this, design your site around your content. But before you start designing, ensure the content that's going on your site is concise, will interest visitors and hold their attention.

Don't distract visitors

Flashy animated intros and background music might seem a good way of showing off your web designing expertise. In truth, they are just another obstacle in the customer's path, keeping them from the information they're looking for.

Do make your website easy to read

Let your content do the talking and don't make it difficult to digest. Visitors won't want to read reams and reams of text so it's important to break it up. There are several ways to do this. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. Try to keep sentences roughly 70 characters long and paragraphs about three or four sentences. You don't need loads of different fonts to catch attention either because they'll only put off visitors. Use three fonts at the most, and consider using a sans-serif font (Arial, Tahoma, Verdana etc.) for large bodies of text because they are easy to read on screen.

Do make it easy to navigate

Keep pages structured, consistent and uncluttered, with menus in a fixed place throughout a site and images aligned with text wherever possible. If pages are busy or difficult to navigate, visitors won't stick around for long. Include navigation bars and links back and to your homepage at all times and make them obvious so the visitor is aware of them. Links that go to other sites should open in a new window, so they don't take visitors away from your site.

Don't keep them waiting

Images can be very helpful in websites, but don't use too many because visitors don't like staring at a blank screen while they wait for your content to load. And they won't wait long. If your site requires lots of images, try to keep them below 50kb in file size so that your site's loading time is speeded up. You might also consider an animated photo gallery as a stylish way to view your pictures. They're easy to use and can condense many images into the space that one would occupy.

Why you should follow these do's and don'ts

When it comes to the rights and wrongs of designing a website, the list is endless. However, as long as you keep in mind the target audience and the do's and don'ts above, you'll be well on your way to creating a professional-looking website.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/5-dos-and-donts-of-designing-a-website-5356183.html

Peter White works for Serif, a leading developer of business software. Serif's web design software includes WebPlus, a professional website design software package and WebPlus Starter Edition, which is free website design software intended for the novice user.

Labels: planning a website, website design tips

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