Website Design Guidelines - Making your website "User Friendly

Some of these guidelines are quite easy to understand and some you will understand only once you know a little about HTML. So save this page in your favorites and come back to it often while making your website often. Also make sure you read these guidelines before and after selecting your template for your website.





Design guidelines - Making your site user friendly (Very Important!)
Your main page is the “first impression you give” and should specifically let your visitors know exactly what you're offering. If your potential customer or visitor can't find your product or service or information, they definitely will not waste a lot of time looking for it. They'll go to the next site and probably never return. They're visiting your site for a specific purpose. They want something your site offers. Provide them with what they are are looking for!

Branding will play a major role in your success. Make sure you place your company or website logo and slogan in the top left corner of each page. This will help your visitors to remember your site. It will also give your pages the same look and feel.

It's much better to keep your main page containing the most essential elements only and link to the detailed informational pages.

A good rule of thumb is "less is more." In other words, keep your main page as small as possible and include your most important elements only. A main page that contains too much information will NOT get you good results.

Navigation
When you begin designing your pages, keep in mind, your visitors may enter your site from pages other than your main page. Make sure you include good navigational links on every page.

Place your navigational links together at the top, bottom, left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly align your links and maintain a nicely organized and uniform appearance throughout.

When someone requires to go from one page of your website to the other he should have to click a maximum of two links.

It should NOT BE under any circumstances confusing for your visitor to find out how to use your website. No body sits around on slow confusing websites. People leave!




Fonts
One of the most important parts of a web page is text. The way in which you display the text on your web page will have a great impact on your success. It can make your page look very professional or very unprofessional.

When placing text within your web page, always be consistent with your fonts. In other words, don't use different fonts throughout your pages. The standard fonts used on the Internet are Aerial and Verdana. The standard text size is 2. Aerial and Verdana are the standard simply because they are the easiest to read on a computer screen.

Headlines, which require a larger font size, are a bit different. A popular headline font used is Georgia, as it displays nicely in the slightly larger font size.




Background and Text Colors
Use caution when selecting your background and text colors. Some backgrounds make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. In addition, always be consistent with your background theme on each page of your site.

Select your colors very carefully, as colors affect your mood and will have an affect on your visitors as well.

Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, cause you to become more cheerful or happy. Colors such as blue and purple have a calming effect. Dark colors, such as brown and black, have a depressing effect.

A good rule of thumb is to use colors based on the type of effect you're trying to achieve. However, it's always best for your text areas to have a white background with black text.