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Follow these suggestions and save yourself some time and
frustration and make everyone who visits your site
happy.
- Use the appropriate medium. If you need full motion
video, send them a video tape. Lots of text is easier to
read on the page than on the screen.
- Be inclusive. Design so that everyone can see whether
they're looking at a 640 by 480, 256 color monitor or a
1280 by 1040 resolution, 24-bit 20 inch monitor.
- Don't force people to change their browsers. Offer
alternatives to using plug-ins.
- Put your most important information first. Most
people don't scroll.
- Design to load fast. Pages should load in less than
15 seconds. Keep graphics files small and use a limited
palette. Use common graphics - the same image on several
pages - so they are downloaded only once.
- Use consistant placement of elements on the screen.
Navigational elements should always be in the same
location, for instance.
- Simplicity is best. Use a few well chosen typefaces,
colors, and layouts. Use animations sparingly. Resist
using music or sound effects which plays automatically.
Don't use JavaScript rollovers or alerts.
- Use black text on white for the best
readability.
- Design so that pages print well. Stick to 535 pixel
wide fixed layout documents or use variable width
layouts.
- Provide visual landmarks such as common headers and
footers so that people know where they are.
- Keep text line length short and left justified. Long
lines of centered text are hard to read.
- Keep body text short and page length short. It's
difficult and tiring to read text on the screen.
- Use plain space well.
- Design pages to read left to right, top to
bottom.
- Don't put everything in one big table. It takes
forever to load and the reader sees nothing until the
entire table loads. At least put a header and a headline
outside the table.
- Put navigation on every page.
- Put identification on every page. Use footers which
contain links to the website coordinator and technical
support and which indicate copyright and the last revised
date.
- Pages should self-center on large screens.
- Use descriptive link names. For instance, Home
Page is better than Click here
to return to the Home page.
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