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Website Design Guide
Introduction
Organize
Style
Audience
Page Size
Layout
Font
Unity
| Put
the most important information at the top of the page |
If you think
of a Web page as real estate, the most valuable land is near the
top. Everyone sees the top when they first arrive at a site.
Visitors might have a tiny screen, a sore wrist, a cranky
disposition, and an "I'm not gonna scroll" attitude; if
you don't want to lose them, you'd better put everything they need
at the top of the page, within the first 300 pixels or so. |
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| Decide on a standard width | You should
decide on a pixel width for your site before you start designing
individual pages. If you don't, then some of the text that shows up
on your monitor will slide off to the side of your reader's screen.
Two common widths are 485 pixels (Netscape Navigator's Macintosh
default) or 600 pixels (Navigator's Windows default). The width
that's right for your site will depend on which system most of your
audience uses. You can even tell visitors to resize their browser
window to the width of a horizontal line on your site's front page.
This site uses 600 pixels. |
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| Read
from left to right
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Most people in the Western countries skim documents from the upper left hand corner, to the right (as if reading text) and then down the page. This is why toolbars are generally found at the left hand side of the screen, and less significant credits are placed at the bottom. Use your readers natural tendencies, and place time dated material in the top right corner. | ||||||
| Design for skim readers | People read
50% slower on a screen than on paper. If you intend on the students
for print out a document, then go ahead and use lots of small text.
This page uses the left hand column of "pull quotes" to
allow the reader to skim the page over on the screen, and then if
the text is import to them, they can print the page out to read
every word. |
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| Use simple, low contrast backgrounds | High-contrast
background patterns can make Web pages difficult to read, so
exercise restraint here (unless you actually want illegible text--in
which case, go nuts). In general, you should aim for limited
contrast in the background pattern itself and greater contrast
between the pattern colors and the text. The best test for
readability is to have someone unfamiliar with your text attempt to
read it; the second-best method is to try to read it yourself.
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How to make a Ski Club Website is brought to you by NWSCC and Chris Miller