Round Table
|
|
Web Site Design
|
Think about your objectives and
how your web site will help to meet these objectives. What sort of image
do you wish to portray? Do you want a visually busy site or create a
more subdued atmosphere? It is to be serious, humorous, authoritative, ostentatious
or down to earth? Reflect on your business concept and opportunities. Uncover an
imaginative way to promote your interests or products.
|
|
Explore ideas and colour schemes. Use thumbnail sketches coloured
with felt tipped pen or watercolour to create draft page layouts.
Pencil, felt tipped pens and watercolour are relatively easy and speedy
mediums to work with. Several ideas can be tried in quick
succession.
|
At this stage we are not seeking perfection but require a flow of
creativity. Don't add too much detail or spend a lot of time with
careful colouring. Experiment with variations until you have a design
that you feel compliments your website objectives. Expand this design
into larger, detailed series of sketches and work through ideas until
you have something that pleases you.
Make it easy for your visitors to navigate through your site. Decide
what sort of structure your web pages will have. A typical structure
looks like an inverted tree with the home page at the top and branches
moving out through various topics.
Consider page layout. Many websites have text in columns like a
newspaper or magazine. Look at a sample of sites. There is often a
column on the left or right sides, or even both sides, to carry
advertising links. Notice how an effective site contrasts text and
background colours so that the text stands out and is easily read.
Tables are a versatile method for laying out a page. A cell is an
individual element of a table. Tables and cells are created without
visible borders and so the table doesn't actually look like a table.
Images or text can be placed in the cells of a table. A table can be
filled with a background colour or image. Individual cells can also be
filled with a background colour or image. You can even place tables
within cells.
Select colours that look good together. Retain a continuous theme throughout the site in terms of colour, fonts
and fill images. It can be visually disturbing to the site visitor when
confronted with sudden changes of layout and colour from page to page.
This doesn't mean that every page has to look exactly the same. Change
small elements to add subtle variation and sustain visitor interest.
|
|
Copy is the written material. You are building a relationship with
someone you can not see, hear and who is potentially thousands of miles
away. When producing copy keep it accurate, concise an unambiguous. Vary
pace and pitch. Keep it interesting. Grab attention. Generate enthusiasm
and create a desire to find out more.
|
Use images to add humour, provoke thought or exhibit products. Images
add visual interest however there is a trade off in that a page that
includes images will load more slowly. Remember, your visitors have
connection speeds to their internet service provider which vary from
slow modems to medium speed broadband to fast leased line.
Learn where to use the graphics file formats JPEG and GIF. Use JPEG
for photographs and images that contain delicate tone and colour
changes. GIF, on the other hand, is best suited to simple illustrations
that have significant areas of solid colour. Logos and cartoons are generally
appropriate for the GIF format.
Learn from and be inspired by the myriad of websites that exist on
the web. Your eye tells you what looks excellent or inferior. Maintain a critical eye
on your work as you develop your own site. Veer away from inferior. Imagine
that you are the visitor and ask yourself:
"Am I compelled to explore this site?"
[ Next ]
