General Design Considerations 6

Traps for the unwary

Don't use frames. Leave them to the bigger commercial sites. Having said that I have used frames on the Normist web site. It can make navigation easier, but frames are on their way out.

Be very careful with your backgrounds. White backgrounds often do not suit the style of your pages, while patterned backgrounds often reduce the visibility of your text. For example, the background used on the Normist site was a stock Microsoft background, but it proved somewhat distracting. Reducing the saturation in a picture editor made the background much more acceptable.

Alternatively, you can produce your own. The trick here is to split your image into four. Reassemble these, swapping the corners diagonally. This ensures that the image matches when it is tiled. All you have to do now is to make sure that there are no nasty hiccups where the quarter pictures are now joined.

Cut down the size of your images. Then cut them again! If a large image is essential to your site, make two versions. Use the small version to attract the visitors interest and use it as a link to the fuller picture on another page. You can use the 'target="_blank"' attribute to bring them back to first page so that they continue in the way you want them to.

Cut down on the use of Java. It can slow your pages to a crawl. If you must use them be sure to check the download times and judge for your self whether or not to leave them in.

Be careful with your navigation. Don't have any pages that you can't leave. Be generous with ways back to the start.

Be sparing of personal details. How many people will care about you as such? Similarly be careful about links to other sites. Do make sure that they all work. Try them all on a regular basis.

Do try out your site in as many browsers as you can before putting your work on the web. At the very least, try it out in Explorer, in Firefox, Opera and in Chrome.

Update your site regularly. Even if its a small change in layout or a change in the links information. Try and stay on the ball.

Keep your pages short. This page, for example, was too long. A combination of the six 'General Design' pages. Keep your pages, if possible to no more than two screenfulls.

Never use the excuse that your site is 'under construction'. They all are under development the whole time or they should be.

Finally make sure that you check that there are no speeling mistakes. It looks so unprofessional if there are!:-)