It isn’t very difficult to design
a bad website. In the past you needed
to know how to format and program in
HTML, but with today’s WYSIWYG
(pronounced whizzy-wig, what you see
is what you get) editors, even those
provided by free hosting sites like
angelfire.com and geocities.com, anybody
can setup their website within a few
minutes, for better or for worse. Other
free weblog hosting services, like blogger.com,
give you all sorts of website design
options, called templates, which you
can alter to fit your needs and desires.
Again, going through the free signup
procedures through these sites is a
snap, and you can add your two cents
to the overall content of the world
wide web in minutes. But is anybody
going to read what you’re writing?
Are they going to want to?
Website design choices range from
the boring and mundane to shiney,
gee-wiz java applets that can make
the text literally jump off the page.
If you’re just getting into
website design, either for a business
or for your own personal site, you’re
going to want to learn the HTML basics,
even if you’re using a WYSIWYG
editor. Find a tutorial, there are
lots of them out there, and learn
how to create boarders, add text,
manipulate photos, and setup links.
Once you’ve figured out how
to do these things you can go onto
designing your site, either from a
pre-made template or from scratch.
There is a lot more to learn, and
it’s to your advantage to keep
learning once you get started. Figure
out how to add backgrounds, page dividers,
and how to manipulate the text you’ve
entered. However, don’t feel
the need to get too flashy.
One of the biggest mistakes in website
design, both by professional programmers
and first-timers, is that programmers
try to make their websites too flashy.
They include flashing banners and
text and animated images. Big intros
eat up bandwidth before users even
get a chance to find the information
they’re looking for. Colored
text clashes with colored backgrounds
and shimmering headers. Though all
of these extras may show off your
design chops, they’re going
to make your website hard to navigate
for users.
So, follow the golden rules of website
design. Keep your site simple and
easy to navigate. Be sure to link
your pages internally; nothing is
more frustrating to a user than having
to navigate back to the front page
every time they want to get to another
area of your site. Colors are great,
but pick a color scheme and stick
with it. Make important content easy
to find, and link every single page
back to the home page. Follow these
rules of thumb and you’ll keep
your website from looking like a train
wreck, and more people will listen
to what you’re trying to tell
them.
