2009 Web Design Tips

Just about any internet user has the ability to create a web page that can be published onto the internet. Unfortunately, this means that a there are many pages and sites on the world wide web that are very poorly designed due to lack of design knowledge. A lot of web design tips are merely personal opinions and preferences, but most design trends that remain in tact do so for a reason. Here are a FEW of the MANY things to think about and remember when designing a web page or site. These tips are not all-compassing, but merely a BEGINNING to a never-ending list.

Layout

There should always be 4 sections [or elements] to an individual web page. First, there should be a header which could include a title, a subtitle, a logo, or graphics for design. Next, there should be a navigation section which should be the same on ALL pages because consistency is KEY to keeping your users wanting to return to your site. There should obviously be a BODY section which consists of the "chunk" of the content of the page. It should be the largest area of the page. Lastly, there should be a footer that could include the creator's name, date updated, copyright information, contact information, logo, or other graphics for design.

Color Schemes

Every web site or page should have a color scheme of no more than 4 colors (in addition to black & white). Since black is the default text color and white is the default background color, these 2 colors can be included on More than that will be too much and take away from the design

Tables

Use tables to organize the information and layout of your pages. Always create a FIXED table width for entire document of 750 pixels. All information should be inside of the this table. Use NESTED tables to crate different numbers of cells in rows. Use the attributes such as cellpadding, cellspacing, border, bordercolor, and bgcolor to add to the design of your page.

Images

Images and photographs should not be used as backgrounds unless they are watermarks (very faint/opaque images) because it is hard to adjust text so it can be easily read on a photograph. Images should be sized proportionally and should NEVER be distorted or stretched in height or width. All images should be saved into an images folder within the site folder. Images should be used to help add to the overall design of a page and should not distract the user from the important information.

Body Font

Do not spend too much time on font choices. Some internet users have settings on their computers to show all sites in a particular font, so your font choice is irrelevant. However, when choosing a font, use one that is common and most likely on a user's computer. The 6 most widely used are: Arial, Georgia, Verdana, Helvetica, Geneva, Courier, and Times New Roman (*however, times new roman is the worst of these 6 because it is the default and very overused ).

Title

Always be sure to create a title in the head/title tag! An untitled web page looks like an unfinished, careless mistake. This title is also commonly used in search engines, so make sure your title describes or explains what content can be found on your page.