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By Veselin Andreev
The effective design is this one, which is maximum
simplified, conformable to your users because they are your
main purpose. This one, simply and clearly announcing what
is your website about. This one, quickly offering the users
exactly what they are expecting to see on your pages without
being troubled with insignificant information. The big
mistake made by lots of web designers is to project their
activities from their own point of view, without thinking
about user.
Factors, damaging the website design effectiveness
• Additional time needed for website downloading
• Badly written content
• Complex design, abundant in elements
• Difficult navigation, incomprehensible for user
• No validated program language
Additional time needed for website downloading
Your pages downloading time is extremely important. Your
users will shut your website down very quickly if you make
them wait more because of your slowly downloading pages. The
other sites are on a mouse click away from them.
• Not important if you are talking about graphics,
multimedia, scripts, applets - be cautious about their
location on your site. Don't put them without judging their
position, just because you or your designer had an idea
about it. Design them small-sized, too.
Badly written content
The text that is ready for print has nothing to do with the
text for the Web. According to Jacob Nielsen, Web usability
guru, users have more difficulties in reading the
information on computers rather than on printed editions.
They rather scan it than read it profoundly. Huge text
blocks are unreadable and couldn't allow them to do it.
Means to make text more readable and effective could be
effectuated by using:
• separate paragraphs
• titles
• subtitles
• indentations
• bullets
• bolds
• hyperlinks
• different fonts and sizes
Complex design, abundant in elements
• Don't complicate users work by complex and abundant
design making the website not to be clear in terms of its
downloading and its appearance on their screens.
• Avoid frames. They could seriously damage your website
usability.
• Having a site, made on FLASH you can't explain fast and
clear to users what his content is about, what it would be
useful with, what they could win, using your services,
because only its downloading will take several minutes. If
you insist however on including FLASH elements, much better
variant is to insert them in a detached small file, with
definite size, but inserting it, you have to possess some
clear purpose. It refers much more to your home page, which
is your website main portal.
• Don't leave your pages without comprehensible title tags,
clearly explaining what is your page about (title tag is the
page title you see on the top of the browser).
• Don't leave your site home page without text, explaining
to your users who you are and what you are talking about on
your site.
Difficult navigation, incomprehensible for user
• Don't upset user by bad navigation, making him feel lost.
He could enter your site by each of its pages, not only by
the home page. If he/she enters by another one, he/she must
understand what is his/her position on your site, where
he/she could go by clicking the corresponding link.
• Don't leave your site without a site map. The site map
gives user the possibility to orientate fast and easy on
it.
• Always put on each of your pages a link to the home page
plus the firm's name and logo, making them also a link to
the home page.
• Don't allow the existing of a orphaned page, where a user
could find lost.
• Don't change the default color of the hyperlinks, because
users are expecting to see them exactly that way. When a
text is blue, the user is used to thing it is a link, and if
it is purple, that it is a visited link. The different
colors from the default ones will throw them into
confusion.
• Don't make blue a text that is not a hyperlink. That will
also confuse them.
• Don't put a link that leads to the same page, except
these that go to other page sections.
No validated program language
The code your site is written in is validated depending on
browsers from different types and versions.
• Incorrectly written program code will make your site users
close it immediately due to its bad appearing in their
browsers.
• The correctly written code is the best way to ensure on
your pages the properly appearing of as more as possible
browsers. It includes old versions and versions that will be
published.
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