The Don'ts Of Web Designing

Getting a great looking website is really a difficult task. We need to take care to make the site more acceaaible and get more visitors pouring in. Here are a few dont's that you need to keep in in while designing a site.

1. Clutter - Too much text and too many links is information overload. Simplicity is the most efficient way of getting a point across.

If you must have a dozen of links in your site, classify them in sections for easy navigation.

2. Different font sizes- Keep consistency in font sizes for text content of similar nature like headers, footers and body text.

3. Too many GIFs - GIFs take a longer time to load and just put people off.

4. Flash - Flash is a brilliant way to desgin content for your website, but do not overuse it. Using too much flash where simple HTML would have done the work is simply annoying. Always have a Skip intro button if you add an flash intro to your site. Provide an Sound ON/Off button if you add background music.

5. No Popups - The thought of using pop-ups should never cross your mind. And these days browsers block pop-ups efficiently, so it becomes useless. Opening clicked links in new windows must be avoided and used only when required.

6. No Horizontal Scrolling - Internet users are accustomed to scrolling webpages from top-to-bottom. The horizontal scroll must be used rarely for anything unless it is a large image.

7. Design for Standard Window Size - design your fixed layouts for web pages considering the standard window sizes, used by most users. 800 x 600 was the standard size a few years before, now 1024 x 768 is the standard window size.

8. No long URLs - Keep your URLs short and related to the subject matter of the web pages they link to. There is no point having URLs larger than 30 to 35 characters long.

9. The first four second - As a rule of thumb, if one cannot figure out what the site is about within four secondsof looking at the loaded web page, the site will most probabily fail to make an impression on the user. Make your contnet crisp and up to the point you want to convey.

 

 

 

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Good list! Another thing I might add, is don't use too bright colours for backgrounds, and if you're going to use an image for the background, use content boxes, unless the image is just a faint outline. Also, if you're going to have the site in a certain font, don't use <font> tags around the whole thing, use CSS.

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Isn't there already another topic for this which has more do's and dont's, and more replies too?

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Easy to say. The right way is "Sir, look at the topic link here ". Saying "there is something better somewhere" is not enough.

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don't
-put that freaking annoying midi music in the backround that sounds remotely like your favorite song
-put your favorite song in the background either. it is okay however if you are a music artist and your website plays your own music
-don't put alot of clipart and animated gifs on your page
-don't use times new roman font in brown on a fluorescent background
-use a bunch of random colors
-make graphics in paint
-make a website in a hurry
-make a website in the rain
-on a train
-on the land
-in the sand
-ok ok you get the idea....
-sit down on a freakin computer for hours and work through it slowly taking breaks


BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL MAKE SURE YOU HAVE FUN!

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This list surely does work as a great reminder ! Tired of seeing all those premature sites commit almost all the don't stated above >< maybe you should add one one more Don't put tons of ads, really tired of the websites where 1/3 of the website is filled with ads.....

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And a pet peeve of mine is to visit a site with "Under Construction" gif's pasted all over it.
If the site is not finished, don't link to the future pages. Add the links as the pages are built.
The only time I don't mind a site not completed is on a Forum where someone is seeking assistance for the HTML or a method to do something on it. Other than that, keep the site private until it is ready.

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A simple rule to go by is that if you wouldn't want to see it, don't use it in your own site. I absolutely hate animated gifs! they drive me crazy . A teacher once told me that to make a good site, it needs to be consistent, keep everything the same and make it nice and simple. Use the same font, colours etc on each page and don't go changing.

Its also nice to make sure that your website works in all browsers (or in as many as possible), it's not good when you loose traffic cause they can't view/use your site! There are heaps of tools on the net for viewing your website through multiple browsers!
-jimmy

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Only pixel artists are allowed to design their site in paint

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Wow very nice ... i did not know not to do some of that thanks

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