Not on the Internet. While there are many schools of
thought about web site design, by and large, most
professional designers will agree that the simpler the
design, the faster the page will load. Why is speed
important?
Statistics show that if a page takes more than 15
seconds to fully load, you risk losing your audience.
With so many web sites to choose from at the touch of a
button, the temptation to bail from a slow site in favor
of immediate satisfaction from another, faster site is
far too great. We live in a world where most people want
what they want when they want it -- now!
So think twice when preparing to add a ton of
animated graphics and ad banners to your web pages. They
may look pretty, but they will cost you in both speed
and audience. Surfers are an impatient lot and you would
do best to keep their best interests in the forefront of
your design.
The plain fact of the matter is that text works best.
If you look at the sites that sell the best, they are
mostly all text.
Recommended Tool:
Themes
Both Microsoft FrontPage and NetFusion offer a rich
variety of ready-made and professional graphical
treatments. Once you have written your web page, you
merely select a theme and apply it. Instantly your site
has color, bullets, titles, banners and much more.
It's funny, though, how many people tend to try their
hand at designing a web site from scratch. Rather than
apply professional templates, they elect to become an
artist. Why do so many people believe they have innate
graphic ability?
If you do not like the library of themes which come
with your HTML editor, you can find a number of web
sites that offer some well designed themes -- some are
even free!
Recommended Services:
All of these companies and designers offer top-notch
graphical layouts, most starting as low as $5.95, and
some companies will even custom design a treatment for
you.
Frames
Frame technology enables a web designer to give a
very different look and feel to their web site. Using
frames, a designer can designate portions of their
screens for body text, navigation and banner areas.
Microsoft FrontPage supports frames, but also offers a
similar technology known as borders. Borders appear
around the perimeter of your web pages and may be used
in a similar fashion to frames. Borders are easier to
use and manage than frames.
Frames present many problems for search engines; they
confuse and confound them so our advice is to avoid
them. Borders do not have any known problems with search
engines at this time.
Fonts
Stick to a family of similar looking fonts. Avoid
mixing serif and sans serif type. By way of example, the
type on this web page is Arial -- a sans serif font --
meaning that it does not have little tails on the
letters such as Roman
which does have tails.
Remember, also, that all those fancy fonts which are
resident on the local machine you design on are not
resident on everybody else's systems or even your web
server. It is for this reason why most people stick to
either a common TrueType Arial or Times Roman font.
Color
Use colors that work well together. If in doubt,
refer to a Pantone card deck or a color book such as Color
Works 1-5 which show different combinations of
colors.
Avoid busy backgrounds or reverse type treatments
(white on black). These make your words hard to read and
will lose your audience quickly.
Navigation
Make sure people can find their way around your web
site quickly and easily. People tend to hop about quite
a bit until they have decided to give your site serious
consideration. Once they make that investment to review
your site more thoroughly, you have them. You should
offer more than one form of navigation -- using buttons
or text -- and include these navigational aids along the
perimeter of your web page.
By way of example, this page offers several
navigational choices:
Animation
Minimize the use of animation wherever possible.
Animated GIFs (such as the animation used in the banners
on this page) tend to add download time to a page. They
can also be very distracting. To this end, use them
sparingly and only where absolutely needed.
Macromedia Flash graphics are beginning to replace
many animated GIF banners. These load and run much
faster, but they require some technical and artistic
ability to utilize properly.
Java
Java has become an enormously popular tool for web
design. The good news is that you neither need to be a
developer nor do you need deep pockets to procure
ready-made Java applets.
There are a number of excellent tools which plug-in
to Microsoft FrontPage or NetFusion. Once installed they
become a seamless part of the menu structure, enabling
you to add animation or interaction at the press of a
button.
Just
enter your text and click to
choose your style and font.
