Dec 15, 2009

Basic Web Design


I know we are almost finished with this class but here are some key points for designing websites in the future, of course containing mashups. Impressive, well laid out, fast loading and easy to use are all terms that describe a perfect website design. In order to attract a prospective visitor and maintain their interest in your site, it is vital to think about why users go there. The homepage is a customers first opportunity to form an immediate opinion about your website and determine whether or not they want to proceed any further. The main objective should be to design a webpage that is not only appealing to the eye, but also is easy to use.

Usually a homepage allows visitors to perform one of several different functions which may include reading the news, searching for information, watching videos or buying products. If you have too many links a customer can become easily overwhelmed and decide to abandon your site and search for another. One option to address that problem would be to use drop down menus which appear in a much cleaner format. Using "calls to action" through images, buttons or text links will also help a customer to easily navigate their way through your website. One of the key points to remember is that "less is more," when it comes to choosing font styles. In order to improve readability and add a sense of professionalism to your webpage design try not to incorporate more than three different font sizes.

Color is also another very important part of webpage design. Depending on what you are trying to project to your audience, webpages can contain many different colors. While designing our website, VacatioNation, we chose to apply the aqua blue color which normally projects the feeling of restfulness, relaxation and calmness and fits perfectly when thinking of vacations.

This was just a brief overview of the many different options you may want to incorporate into your own website design that will improve the functionality and enhance the overall look. There are also plenty of website tutorials online that may aid in the development of your next website.

5 comments:

  1. Hey Patty, very cool post.
    I heard some of these things this semester in IS279 - Google Adwords. For those who have no clu how to create and design a website in a more professional manner, Prof. Bud Gibson explains HTML, CSS and other nice things. But, be aware that he expects 5 blog posts a week. (students.biggerbuybutton.com)

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  2. I agree that the homepage needs to be appealing to the eye. I have gone one some and you can just tell how spotty it is. I usually go to the next site (unless I am looking for a menu), restaurants often have lesser quality of websites, but as long as they have their menu it is okay with me.

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