Principles of the Good Website Design

---

Anyone can build a Web site. The point is to make a good Web site. Here are some principles to guide you through the process:

Define your website intend and goals. Hand in hand with clarifying your goals is defining your audience. Who is the intended audience for your web site? Building their websites people often forget their goals -to attract more visitors, to sell more products, to give better information... and focus on trying to impress the visitors with flashy website packed with the newest web technologies and achievements. What good is a visually stunning website which gets only 5 visitors a month??

Design for the audience, not for yourself. When designing a site the first thing most people do is abandon traditional html and go for maximum bells and whistles. They build a ridiculously complicated monstrosity that no one can maintain. Then they hit the slightest problem, like it displays differently in different browsers, and the whole thing collapses. People like traditional sites with pictures and words and real information. They shun fancy sites. They abhor flash sites. They aren't interested in technological achievement in the least. They want to find what they are looking for and if they don't see it - and I mean immediately - they are out of there.

Understand the audience needs. Users should be able to glance at your main page and see exactly how the site is organized. The visitors will not dig and hunt through a Web site. Why would they? There are millions of them. Your Website must be intuitive. The "next move" should be apparent. Browsing web pages is work and users are impatient. Users must see what they need and to go directly to it. Make sure your site is clearly organized and easy to navigate.

Choose the right format for your website:

- HTML website – the traditional way to create a website. It offers unlimited possibilities. Excellent choice if you need truly unique website, which do not need to be updated often. The disadvantage is – you will need some basic HTML knowledge to make changes on your own or need to hire an expert. It’s difficult to integrate database applications.

- Content Management System – very popular with bloggers and people who wants to update their websites on their own. With CMS you can update your website content via your web browser – no software or special skills needed. There are thousands of free plug-ins, you can use for any purpose. The disadvantage – it has some customization and content limitations and it's more vulnerable to hacker attacks than regular HTML website.

- Online Website Builder – a simple way to build your own website, but rarely gives good results for people who are not familiar with the website development process and HTML coding. May be a good choice for basic website, but should be avoided for business websites where the appearance and functionality are important.

- Flash Website – looks good, but very expensive to build and update. Flash websites are not search engine friendly and will not rank well in Google searches. They also do not work on some mobile devices (such iPhone,iPad and iPod) and load slow on computers with Dial-Up Internet connection.

About Us

Video of the Week

Follow Us