Website design 106

Website Design Considerations

Before commencing with the actual design there a number of considerations that should be kept in mind. These range from basic design principles through to ensuring your site is visible to as many users as possible.

Factors such as page load time, ease of finding the information being looked for and the overall 'look and feel' of a page contribute to a visitors online experience and ultimately determine whether they stay or visit your competitors website.

Colour. Make sure people can see your site. Stick to conventional colour schemes with dark text on a light background (or vice versa). Some colour schemes are very difficult for partially sighted people to understand. Don't try to be different or 'wacky' as this will probably lead to usability problems. In this instance, being different can be loosely translated as 'doing what others have learned to avoid'. The pre-design phase is probably the most important phase of all. Gaining a clear understanding of what you need to achieve before you start trying to achieve it will save time, money and effort in the long term.

Contrast is the key as demonstrated in the above examples. The blue background would not be recommended as blue is a difficult colour for the eye to focus on. A useful, free tool for helping choose a good colour scheme is available at www.paletteman.com.

White space. Make sure your design is not too cramped. It's important for a user to be able to identify different areas on the page and the more text there is the less appealing and more difficult to read it becomes. Make sure your content is distinct from your navigation, this way pages will be easier to read and it will be easier to move around the site.

One option when designing web pages is to have images displayed in the background, allowing your text to sit on top. Unless you are very confident of your own or the designers abilities this should be avoided as it can very easily lead to hard to read text.

Fonts. The simpler the fonts you use the better. Arial, Verdana or other sans-serif fonts are good choices for body text. A serif is a short line at the end of the main strokes of a character, as illustrated below.

Sans-serif fonts are less detailed and generally easier to read on computer screens. Bear in mind that a visitor to your site will only be able to see the fonts he or she has installed on their computer, so avoid choosing more esoteric fonts as they will probably display incorrectly.

Keep the number of fonts used to a minimum - it's certainly possible to use one font with varying sizes throughout an entire site for example.

Font size is also important. Make sure you don't set font sizes too small as again, the visually impaired will have difficulty using your site. You should also allow for the fact some users will increase the font size so make sure your design can accommodate this.

Screen size. Where possible, try to ensure your website design can be correctly viewed, without horizontal scrolling on a monitor set to a 800x600 pixel resolution. The BBC site has been designed for 800x600 but the news pages can be viewed on resolutions as low as 640x480* pixels with text versions accommodating even smaller sizes. BrowserSizer is a small windows utility that allows you to open new browser windows at fixed sizes, avoiding the need to manually change screen resolution. There is also an excellent set of utilities available at Favelets.com, among which are some browser resizing tools.

* On 19th February 2003 the BBC launched an updated version of the news site designed for 800x600 minimum screen resolution. The text only version has been discontinued and replaced with a new 'low graphics' version.

Speed. The speed at which a site displays in a web browser will often determine whether a user stays or leaves. Current research states that you have approximately eight seconds to grab your users attention. That's eight seconds to display enough information to appease a users desire for content. When you bear in mind that the majority of web users are dial-up (modem) users that's not long at all. Consequently, one of the most important considerations is page size. This means that graphics, photos and other imagery should be kept to a minimum.

Simplicity. While it's not always true that 'less is more' it's a sound grounding point for any design project. Never try to be over ambitious as more often than not this will result in unprofessional, cluttered results.

Usability. Make sure your design accommodates a clear and easy to use navigation system. The more complex the site the more thought will need to go into this. Functionality is absolutely key. There are a large number of sites on the web with navigation systems that need to be learned before being used - how long do you think the average user will spend at your site if it is difficult to use when there are undoubtedly plenty of others to choose from?

Make sure that every page on your site has clear links to the homepage (useful for visitors who are lost or didn't enter your site on the homepage), contact information (you could miss that all important call if your visitors can't find how to contact you) and either a page dedicated to a site map or search facility. You should also consider including options for emailing and printing the current page.

Legal. Where appropriate, you must also include links to terms of use and privacy statements. These are increasingly important with considerations such as the data protection act.

Tip 4: Stick to established design principles and ensure your site is easy to use.

Next: Website Design Mock-up

Mighty Media are a full service multimedia company and have employed an in-house team of website designers since 1997. Our practical, marketing oriented approach to website design has resulted in numerous site launches that succeed in driving qualified, targetted leads to our client's businesses.

Mighty Media is regarded as one of the premier Buckinghamshire website design agencies with a track record in corporate communications that forms the underlying foundation of their work.

Established for over 25 years, Mighty Media began making TV commercials and later diversified into the corporate video production sector working with household names such as Procter & Gamble, Mars, Nationwide Building Society and other familiar names. With a strong background in internal and external communications Mighty Media progressed into new media production. Mighty Media now specialise in CD-Rom design and production, e-learning solutions, intranet design, extranet design, video production and website design.

Based in Bourne End on the border of Buckinghamshire and Berkshire Mighty Media now provide website design and online marketing services to businesses from all over the UK.

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