general
Good design is generally in
the eye of the beholder. Something may look and feel great to one person
and the opposite to another. However, there are several aspects about a
design that allow it to qualify as an excellent design.
It is my belief that a well
designed web site or page will definitely assist in both attracting visitors
to your site as well as keeping them there for longer and encouraging them
to return more often. Here I am going to try to isolate these aspects,
elements and qualities in relation to web page and site design.
Let us assume that you already
have something that you want to publish on the World Wide Wait, but you
are not yet decided how you want to present it. Taking heed of a set of
basics should help you no end. I have listed the set of basic parameters
that I endeavour to satisfy below, with what I believe are some significant
rules that I try to live by, to achieve a good result. But above all, generally,
I'm sure you will find that the strongest rule of all is the ‘KISS'
rule: Keep It Seriously Simple!
And while we are talking about ‘serious' things, remember if you are serious
about making an impact on the Web, and you want to do it properly, you
are going to have to face the fact that it's not going to be a five minute
job you are letting yourself in for. Brace yourself for a lot of work designing,
creating, and maintaining your site.
know your visitors
The look of your site should
be in keeping with the audience you are trying to attract, ... sounds simple
enough, ... of course everyone knows that if your web site is all about
the latest rap music you're not going to make it look like a newsletter
for a sewing circle, right? OK, this might be an exaggeration to illustrate
the point but it is a serious point, take a moment to look around the web,
objectively, and I am sure that you won't go too far before you agree that
there are a lot of sites out there that don't comply with this basic principle.
Ask yourself the question "am I confident that the person extolling the
virtues of ‘Rap' on a page whose design makes me feel like I need a crochet
rug over my knees, really knows what the feeling and energy behind Rap
Music is all about"?
Decide
who your audience is going to be.
Research
their culture.
Know
their visual cues and language.
These are very powerful aspects
of the design of your page use them faithfully.
Where this becomes particularly
difficult is where the subject of your site has an appeal to people from
diverse age groups and cultures. Here you will have to be particularly
careful that you ensure that there is something in the design that makes
everyone from this range comfortable and welcome, sometimes this can even
mean that you have to design mirror web sites, each with similar content
but a different feel. The placement of any of your advertising will reflect
the culture that you are trying to attract to your site through a specific
portal to your site that has the particular feel in the design that is
attractive to that group. I feel very strongly about this, ...
I work in a tertiary institution
(my day job :-) and for several years the official web site of this institution,
looked like a dry old set of policy documents, yet the group that the site
is aimed at is generally 17 - 25 year old people, ... of course the anti-technology
lobbyists loved the fact that not many enquiries came into the institution
via the web portal, "they always knew that computers were not everything
that they were cracked up to be!" .. luckily some "on the ball" employees
staged a coup, redesigned the site, now you don't hear much from the lazy
sods who don't want to learn how to use technology, - (the non-computer
nerds).
think
globally
Another strong factor in
your design is the ability to think Globally. I am never ceased to be amazed
at how parochial some designers are when it comes to designing content
for web sites! This world is shrinking before our eyes (especially with
the proliferation of the internet and e-commerce). Where 'Yesterday' we
had the 'Corner Dairy' that was open 9am - 5pm, 7 days a week. Todays marketplace
is Global, which puts any type of business on the internet (world wide)
closer than the 'Corner Dairy', and they are all open 24 hrs a day, as
well as 7 days a week! They are all competing for exposure. So the designer
whose content and site interactability transcends national boundaries has
an advantage.
navigation
If you can't find what you are
looking for on a site then you aren't going to stay there long. Navigational
links and Site Maps are almost as important on a site as the information
being displayed. In my view you can't have too much in the way of clear,
easily accessible links to all the main sections of a site from every page,
and even within a page when the page is large. A good general rule is,
- if a page has to be scrolled more that twice the display of a normal
screen size and resolution (say 800 x 600 pixels), place some targets within
the page so a visitor can jump to the points of interest.
As you may well have thought,
- placing a link to every page from every other page - even on a small
to medium sized site of 15 pages or more is more often than not quite inappropriate,
numerous lists of site links can often have the effect of confusing the
visitor or cluttering up a page.
The sites that I have the
least problem finding my way around (or feel most comfortable visiting)
are those that have the subject matter contained within the site broken
down into several main (or broad) criteria. In other words the site is
broken down into sections, This way the main navigation bar or list is
uncluttered and simple (remember the KISS principle?) It should be placed
in a significant position on each and every page, it should look the same
or similar and it should be also placed in the same position (ie top, or
top left, or wherever), on every page - this adds to the comfort of the
visitor, gives a familiar feel to all pages and the visitor is left feeling
that they know their way around the site soon after arrival. With two clicks
a visitor should be able to enter any main section of a site from any page
on the site. One click to scroll or jump to a position on the page where
the main navigation is visible and one click to jump from the current page
to any other section of the site.
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