Your site must be accessible in all browsers, not just Internet Explorer most people use Explorer but if you only make your website accessible to this you might be losing 30% of your audience. A good designer tests your website on all the browsers they can get their hands on – Explorer 4, 5, and 6, Netscape, Firefox, Gecko and Galleon, Safari, Opera, Explorer on a Mac – and makes sure that it looks right and does everything it should.
GRAPHICS
If a picture is too big in file size it will take a long time to load and drain your visitors’ resources, not to mention their patience.
Waiting for a picture to download and seeing one line at a time appear in front of us is very tedious and dull.If a picture is too small in file size it will look grainy and cheap. A bad designer will take a picture as is and just put it on your site. A good web designer will use all the tricks they can to get the best payoff between quick pictures and pictures that look good for example editing.
EASY READING
The best websites are clean, elegant and easy to use. A first-time visitor knows exactly where to find anything they want. If they can’t, you may as well not have bothered putting it there.
A bad web designer thinks they have to choose between navigation and being “artistic.” That is certainly no excuse and a good web designer is completely able to deliver both at once.
SECURITY
Beware of web design companies who think that if it looks good on top that’s enough. If you are taking credit card details or even contact details then you need to make sure that no one else can read them. This is something a lot of clients take for granted but a terrifying number of cowboy operators send passwords, credit details and personal information in a clear, easy-to-read format, across the web for everyone to see.
If you collect data about people (even just contact details) you should have a privacy policy to explain what you do with that data.
Your web server should be secure.
AIM AND POINT
This is so obvious and yet so many sites completely overlook it or fail to tell you what they’re for. Why do you have a website? What is your website supposed to achieve?
Here are some good reasons to have a website:
- To sell my products to new people
- To offer an information resource and position myself as an expert in my field
- To offer a free report or e-book to introduce my company and gather names of prospects
- To give people I meet in the real world a place to book or buy what it is I sell
Here are some bad reasons to have a website:
- Because everyone else has one
- Because I want to be able to see pictures of our business
- Build “brand” awareness
Notice that all of the good reasons do something, and most of them do something for other people. The bad reasons are passive and have nothing to do with your customers or possible customers.
THE DESIGN
Keeping the design simple is important. Web users have short attention spans.
If the website does not immediately attract your customer and tell them what they want, they will move on in frustration.Simplicity is key. Provide room to breathe; make room for white space on the page through a combination of imaginative layout and typography.Distractions on the page should be avoided. A home page that takes time to load and then has no information except a clever graphic, is time wasted.A website should be simple to navigate, easy to understand and above all, intuitive.
COLOURS
The colours of the website should be appealing to the audience eye, they should complement the imagery and typography used so all are clear and accessible for the consumers. For example white typography on a black background contrast greatly and would be made very clear. Adding to this a good designer would use a relevant colour to the aim and purpose of the website for example a children's television programme site would have bright, primary colours yellow, blue or green. A heavy metal rock band would have dark colours black, grey, brown to relate to the mood of their songs.
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