Good website design
The King of all Web sites
Have something interesting to say and people will love you. Hide behind all the pretty graphics in the world, but if there’s no content in there no-one will come back. Content really is King.
Keep it simple
The surfing audience has a notoriously short attention span… Still with us? Good, then make your navigation simple and intuitive. Keep your text in bite size chunks and maybe they’ll stick around.
The three Click Rule
Try and adhere to this and you’ll not go far wrong. Make any page available within 3 clicks from the homepage. If you don’t think this is possible, think again. Some sites, with over 500 pages, complies with this rule.
Spell Check
Simple enough to do this one, or is it? There’s nothing more annoying than bad spelling. Every computer in the world has some kind of spell checking facility. Use it!
Page Sizes
Don’t cram your entire site on a single page that scrolls down into infinity and takes three weeks to load. Spend a little time planning and offer your visitors smaller pages that fit together well.
Colours & Contrasts
One of our favourites, the dark blue text on a black background trick! Make sure the colours you use compliment the message. Another pitfall to avoid is the busy background that obscures the text.
Flashing lights
Keep your animations to a minimum. One or two per page is more than enough for anyone and if you give your visitors a headache, chances are they aren’t going to love you for it.
You’ve been Framed!
Frames, not so long ago they were very popular but with them comes all sorts of horrors in getting the display right and keep the site together for visitors who came in through deeper pages. Avoid them.
Under construction!
Simple, if it’s not ready, don’t post it. All sites are, or at least should be, being constantly built and updated. Keep your work behind the scenes.
Interaction
Give your visitors things to do. Bulletin boards, surveys, forms, quizzes, chat rooms, games. There’s all sorts of ways to get your visitors involved in your site.