IS YOUR WEB SITE UNFRIENDLY? Part 7 of 9Written by Laraine Anne Barker
The following tips will help make sure you don't inadvertently make your page, or part of your page, invisible to visitors:1. If you use a textured background GIF make sure you also specify a background colour that is similar to main colour in GIF or your text could be unreadable to someone browsing with text-only. Believe it or not, I have found myself trying to read white text on my browser's default light background! The fact that I had specified a default background colour rather than white was only way I realised there WAS something there to read. 2. If your background texture/colour is dark, use a light text to create enough contrast to make it easy to read. If background texture/colour is light, use a dark text. 3. Keep your use of brighter colours to a minimum: fluorescent green or yellow text on black, for instance, is very hard on eyes. If you favour a black background, use such effects sparingly--say to draw attention to your email address. Bright coloured backgrounds are also hard on eyes--not to mention fact that finding a good contrasting text colour (apart from black or white) is almost impossible because bright colours are often neither dark nor light.
| | IS YOUR WEB SITE UNFRIENDLY? PARTS 3 and 4 of 9Written by Laraine Anne Barker
Part 3: Sound FilesIf you must put MIDI sound files on your page make them so that visitors have to ask to hear file--maybe by pressing "start" button. Apart from fact that visitors may find music objectionable, there's a good chance: 1 they are surfing late at night or early in morning when other people are sleeping; 2 they are listening to radio or a CD and will be irritated when your sound file drowns it; 3 they may even be trying to look busy during a lull at work, and sound could alert boss. You will be MOST unpopular. I'm sure I'm not only surfer who (unable to reach "stop" button because page is still loading) just bangs on close window box until page goes away. I never return. Part 4: Text; way it's presented can make or break your page 1. Be consistent with your typeface sizes. Body text should usually be same size type throughout and headings and subheadings should also be consistent. If you keep jumping from one typeface size to another for no real reason your page will look ugly and might even be difficult to follow.
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