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Things to Remember Before Making a Website
by Jonna Ajeda

Websites today are getting more and more colorful, flashier, and somewhat ridiculous. Moving objects, big magnificent images, 3D objects that goes zooming across the page, and cool pop up windows are the common things that you’ll see on the web today.

The use of Flash has been a huge help in attracting in visitors. Flash makes a website more dynamic or basically more fun for users to visit. Flash games, flash animations, flash buttons, flash banners, flash backgrounds are what’s making a website more fun to visit, making a website more welcoming and sometimes more professional looking.

Applying all of these things in a website may be a good way of attracting visitors, and possibly make it worthwhile for users to visit. But stuffing all of these in a single webpage could cause a lot of problems, one of which is loading time.

Some web designing companies are just “design this and design that”, lacking the knowledge on how a website should work not look. Limitations are a very important element in developing a website; too much of a good thing could also be bad, especially for a website, so here’s a short list of what a website should be able to do rather than a website should look.

Loading

Loading is foremost the most important aspect of a good web design. A website should possess a faster way of loading its content. Faster loading time doesn’t entirely depend on the user’s ISP. It also depends on how a website is constructed or designed. Here are some tips on how to make a website more effective and load a lot faster.

• Minimize and optimize images.
o Images do help in making a website more attractive and stuffing more images will make it more eye-catching. But remember that users are not there to marvel on a website’s design, they are more concerned on the information that they want. So if possible, minimize the use of large images and break it down as much as possible to simple HTML.
o Optimizing these images is also important for a website design to load faster. Images should be in a .gif or .jpg format. The use of colors from a color palette is also important. Lesser color means lesser size and lesser downtime.
• The Use of Tables
o Tables are also a good way of making a website load faster. Tables are loaded faster because it’s just an HTML code. Tables can be used anywhere from homepages, to navigation or menus, or images that are loaded separately.
• Simple Icons
o Smaller or simpler icons are more preferable than using big and bulky images. Icons are just there to add a little color on a menu or button to attract more visitors.
• Use CSS
o CSS is among of the primary keys in an effective website. And again, CSS is only an HTML code so it can load a lot faster. CSS styles such as rollovers and other cool effects can provide a tinge of spice to a website yet not jeopardize the whole effectiveness of a website.
• Flash
o As I said before, Flash is becoming a huge thing in designing a website. The use of flash in a website gives it body, a way for a website to be a lot more alive than just sitting there wide open. But the use of flash in a website is quite heavy, and a full flash website is not as effective as those with lesser flash in it. Limit the use of flash in a website. Don't make entire sites using Flash. It may look great but it takes hours to load and can really put off visitors.
• Designing it most on HTML
o As much as it possibly can, design a website on HTML. You can create great designs by just using HTML code. Use tables, CSS Styles and simple fonts to design your site. Minimize the use of animated gifs, Flash, bulky images etc.

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Navigation

Here’s the usual logic of a user that visits a website: the user will come in, and then look for the navigation. It’s that simple. Navigation is a way for visitors to get around a website faster and conveniently. It’s always preferable that the navigation is located on the top side of a webpage (that is where a user usually looks at first). The sides left and right is also a good location for the navigation. It’s always appropriate for a website to make it easier for its users to navigate through their site, conveniently helping them get to their goals a lot faster. Here are some tips on how to make a proper navigation.

• Organization of Links
o Links within the navigation must be arranged hierarchically from the most important to the lesser importance. Navigations usually start off with “Home”. Users will usually look under the category that they are looking for such as services which is usually located under the category “Services” in the navigation. So it’s important to make your navigation very clear and arranged for optimum performance.
• Making it Visible
o As I said, the navigation should be placed upon where the eyes of the user usually look at first. Usually, users will look on the top left of the page so a navigation on that place is perfect to let them know that the navigation is there and ready to provide them a way to get around the site.
• Consistency
o The navigation must always be present on every page of the website. This’ll make it a lot easier for the visitors to go where they want from a page without hitting the “Home” button over and over again.

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Compatibility

Other than the usual Internet Explorer, there are also other internet browsers that internet users use such as Mozilla Firefox and Safari. Now different web browsers work differently, there may be a time where a website is working fine in Internet Explorer but becomes a disaster when opened in Mozilla Firefox or Safari. This is why it’s important that a website must be able to work if opened in any web browser.

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Resolutions

Making sure that the website is compatible in any screen resolution is also important for the success of a website. Because of computers having all kinds of resolution, this task must be taken seriously. Computer resolutions of today range from 640 x 480 to 1024 x 768 and go even higher. So it’s very important that your website must be able to work on these resolutions.

Professionalism

Professionalism must be kept into mind when constructing a website. Fonts used in a website must be able to relay a feel of professionalism to those that looks and reads it. Using fonts such as Comic Sans with bright colors such as pink may be artistic or fun, but for the side of the user, it may cause for a feel of unreliability and unprofessionalism. Fonts such as Verdana and Arial are the usual fonts that professional designers use for the content of a website.

Images must also be chosen properly for the website. Relevance of the image from the theme of the website must is very important.

Using of space is also important. For a professional feel of a website, organization by the use of white spaces is important. Try not to clutter up your page with too many images, backgrounds and colorful fonts. Again use the Keep It Simple principle by minimizing the use of graphics and using a lot of white space. White space gives a sense of spaciousness and overall neatness to a site. Notice the white space in our site.

These are only some of the aspects that a professional website must possess. The only thing that you should always keep in mind when designing a website is that people or users or visitors are not there to look at what the website looks like. 13% of the time, users only notice the design and the artistry of a website. Users have their own goals when visiting a website, one of them is the delivery of information they are looking for. And that is what a website must possess; a way to look good and work good and at the same time assist their visitors to reach their goals.

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Author's Biography:

Internet marketing company with operations in the Philippines offering seo, web design and development smo interactive cd development, interactive flash games development, flash 2d animation and mobile application development.




Posted on: August 5,2006


Email:
jhonaajeda@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.wickedinnovations.com




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