Diabolical DesignWritten by John Calder
© 2004, John Calder http://www.TheEzine.netYou can find guides and tips on good web site design everywhere. In 1998, Vincent Flanders co-authored a book with a unique twist. It was called "Web Pages That Suck", and Mr. Flanders followed that with a similar co-authored book in 2002. In that spirit, we'd like to offer you our top five tips on diabolical design - how to create web pages that look like h-, well, you know. 1. Use javascript and Flash. Lots and lots of it. Make sure you ignore fact that my browser isn't 100% compatible. If you can, try to crash my browser. It's not always 100% compatible, and I really like color in that little Windows error box anyway. 2. I like a lot of gratuitous graphics too. Include lots of large files that take a while to download, especially over dialup. A long while. It would be an especially nice touch if you can have some heavy zig-zag and grid backgrounds, something that blends in with your text for that nice, unified look. And whatever you do, don't forget little animated GIF files! They're cute, and especially distracting, so I'd like a lot of those too, please, all around your page. 3. If I do manage to get to one of your pages, please be certain that you've fixed font sizes with CSS. Make them, oh, about 8 or 9 pixels high, bolded. That should do it - well, except use lots of different colors and font styles, just to prove to me you can. While you're in CSS file anyway, try to get rid of some of that extra white space by adjusting line height (the space between lines of text) so that it's only 1/2 it's normal space. There's no use in my having to scroll down page - make sure it's all above fold, OK?
| | Web Sites Share Your Dream With The WorldWritten by Terry Nicholls
With over 16 million web sites on Internet, how do you get your home-based business's site noticed?There is much to discuss when it comes to web sites, but this article will consider some basic ideas for your web site's design. Ask three people for their Internet design opinions and you'll get three different answers. One thing's for sure, though: That's right, Keep It Simple Stupid. :-) Web sites should have a clean, simple look with easy navigation and a logical layout. Nothing turns a visitor away quicker than being confused. If your visitors can't find what they're looking for within a few seconds, they'll click to another site and never return to yours. Design Considerations Here are some things to keep in mind: Load Time -- Internet users are impatient. If it takes too long for your web pages to load, they'll go somewhere else. And, yes, 10 seconds is long! Graphics -- Too many graphics on your web sites also contribute to slow load times. Some people turn off display of graphics in their browsers, which means you need to have ALT tags to tell them what graphic is about. In addition, reduce size of your graphics so that your web pages load quicker by using one of free image reducers available on Internet. Broken Links -- Web pages should work, so verify all links regularly to make sure you're not losing visitors out of frustration.
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