Monday, March 23, 2009

Interesting Information On Website Design

By Kevin Jones

Achieving optimal performance is the most important factor in a website design. It is a huge mistake to assume the belief those visitors needs to be entertained with fancy flash works which usually requires long loading time, when the truth is exactly the opposite.

Follow these basic rules for website design when creating your site and you can be assured of an optimally designed website you can be proud of.

1) Splash pages should be left out. The splash pages are the fancy pages you see when you enter a website. These pages use elaborate designs created with the purpose to entertain the visitor with fancy animations, brilliant photos and include welcoming words such as "hello" "welcome" or "click here to enter our website". They are pages with no purpose, and serves to discourage uses from fully utilizing the actual purpose of the website due to their slow loading time. This fanciful addition only serves to confuse the visitor who will likely leave your website immediately if loading time takes too long.

2) Banners must be kept minimal. The most common place for these large advertising banners to be placed is close to the page header but the bottom of the page is also quite popular too. Banner ad tends to be ignored by most web surfers so it is a total majority of the web surfers so they would a total waste of your website space. Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being coerced.

3) Always use an easy navigational system Navigation should be made very simple so that even a young child can understand. Do stay away from any form of Flash based menu or even multi-tiered menu as they only serve to add more complication to the layout. If you make it difficult for them, they will leave your site. Have a sitemap added to the website design to help them find what they are looking for.

4) Let it be clear on the user where he is at the moment. When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. This can easily be achieved by ensuring each page has a title and a textual 'breadcrumb trail' that clearly shows the links they have made to get where they are now. Never confuse your visitors because you will lose them very quickly as they become frustrated.

5) Audios are a bad idea. If you wish for your visitors to stay long enough to read the contents, do not loop your music file in a way that irritates. The sounds when added can enhance an experience, but when played over and over gain it can start to be irritating. Using audios may not always be a good idea, if you have to include them be sure to allow for some form of user control such as volume or muting ability. By applying all these website design tips we share, you can expect to reap long term benefits from continuous traffic from returning visitors to your website.

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