Tuesday 20 May 2014

Building A Better Website: Design Tips That Work

http://blog.programmingisnothard.com/2014/04/swc-guild-javac-bootcamp.html
Building A Better Website: Design Tips That Work
Many people love to design websites, but they aren't quite sure how to organize their pages. Like anything in life, organization is key and the same goes for your website. If the site is not organized then you will have frustrated visitors who cannot find anything. Continue on to the article below for some great tips on how to best design an organized website.

Avoid creating user interface (UI) controls that mislead your visitors. These controls include elements, widgets and more that create an interactive experience, such as a link, drop-down list or button. You do not want to make visitors think that clicking on an underlined word or phrase for example, will lead to a new page if it is not actually linked to something else. When your visitors have expectations of something working a certain way and it does not, they are more likely to assume there is something wrong with your site and leave.

Give your visitors the ability to search your site so that they can more easily find what they are looking for. If someone cannot find what they are looking for right away, their next thought will be to look for a search field. Put this somewhere obvious and include a search button.

Always ensure you are giving meaningful feedback, as this is what creates the communication between a website and its visitors. For example, if an action taken by a visitor results in an error, do not simply display "error occurred."� Instead, provide a message that explains what happened and how the visitor can correct the error by taking a different action. Without this feedback, visitors are more likely to grow frustrated and just give up by leaving your website.

To help your website visitors find their way home on your site, always include a link to your homepage on each page of your site. Having a home page link that is visible allows your reader to easily make their way back to starting point. If you do not have a home page link then your visitors might get frustrated and leave your site altogether.

To help you design a more professional looking site, do not include an image in the page background. A background image screams low quality site, plus these site usually take forever to load. When you are going for a more professional look, the last thing you want is your visitors waiting forever because images are still loading on your pages.

If you have several pages on your web site, use a navigation bar at the top to help visitors find the information they need right away. Include contact information, so they can speak with you if they'd like. Headings should be clear and visible, and paragraphs should be concise as well as easy to read.

Make text easy to ready by using colors that contrast or backgrounds that are easy to read text on. When your text is harder to read because the background or text color creates eye strain or portions of text that are unreadable, site visitors are less likely to stick around.

For your image tags, always try to include a brief description in the ALT attribute. Not only is this good for search engine optimization, but it is also beneficial to the sight-impaired users who rely on screen readers to describe image tag contents. Make your description short and as descriptive as possible.

To help your website function the way it is intended to, make sure all your links are working. If you have broken links then your visitors may get frustrated when they try to click on something that interests them. Frustrated visitors is not something you want because they end up leaving your site mad.

Get your domain name registered when you have a site idea. Use your creativity in choosing a site name, but ensure you do now to keep the site for yourself. Many people have similar ideas and may take the name you want before you have a chance. With hundreds of millions of sites on the web, you simply cannot wait and assume others did not have the same idea.

Adobe Dreamweaver is a great program to try if you need to create a website. Even amateurs can quickly get the hang of using this program. You can add many different features, create various templates and layouts, and test how your site will look once it's loaded onto a permanent server.

While bright and bold may be your style, you have to remember that designing a site is just as much for your visitors as it is for you, so take it easy on those bright, bold color options. Having a bright site might just scare people away. The last thing you want is a blinding shade of neon green making it hard to see your content.

As stated from the article above, it is very important when you design your website that you have it organized properly. If your site is disorganized then nobody will find anything and it will leave your audience annoyed. Apply the advice from this article so you can design a website that won't make your visitors click out of it in frustration.

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