Website Design Tips
Last updated: Friday 5th
September 2008, 8:58 PT by AHD
Use WWW
Standards
Think about your audience. Who will use
your website?
If the website is for your students,
design it with them in mind:
If the website is for yourself, design
it with yourself in mind.
http://members.shaw.ca/ahdawson/
Every page should have a link to the
home page.
http://www.annedawson.net/CSCI102.htm
Every page has a title which tells which
website it belongs to.
http://www.annedawson.net/CSCI103.htm
On the home page (index.html) have
contact info (e.g. an email address).
On the home page (index.htm) have
copyright information.
Be consistent. Choose a style and stick to it.
http://www.annedawson.net/CSCI101.htm
http://www.annedawson.net/CSCI102.htm
http://www.annedawson.net/CSCI103.htm
Make navigating your website easy.
Have simple pages. Simple means small,
means fast loading.
Check that your website can be viewed as
intended on most popular web browsers.
(Most popular browser is Microsoft's
Internet Explorer. Others are Firefox, Netscape, Opera etc)
Update your site regularly. Have a Last
updated: date on every page.
Avoid constantly running animations. See
horse (animated gif) on this page:
http://www.annedawson.net/MustangSummer2004.htm
and scroll down to see the walking man
(animated gif) on this page:
http://www.annedawson.net/BUSI237.htm
Never underline text on a web page,
because readers will confuse this with a link.
If the web page is a personal website,
never give out personal information,
e.g. your address, phone number, your
children's names.
Make sure you have no dead links (a link
to a web page which does not exist).
http://www.annedawson.net/Outline999.htm
Always have up-to-date content.
Use a good colour contrast so that text
is easily read.
Web pages that are likely to be printed
should be black text on a white background.
Hit counters count the number of
visitors to a website or web page.
They are a useful website analysis tool,
but are better kept invisible.
E.g. see bottom of this page:
http://www.annedawson.net/WhichCourse.htm
Click on the SiteMeter to get more
information.
Avoid colours that might cause eye
strain.
Avoid full screens of solid text with
little white space.
Avoid long web pages which necessitate
scrolling (e.g. this page).
Avoid having lots of pictures on a page.
Pictures are large files and will
slow down the loading of your web page.
http://www.annedawson.net/MustangSummer2004.htm
Avoid too much clutter on a page (too
much information).
http://www.annedawson.net/Schedule120A_FA04.htm
Avoid advertising.
Avoid popups.
Keep it simple. The most popular websites are those
which are easy to use
and fast to load.
See also:
http://build-website.com/guide/index.html