Do’s and don’ts of website design

Posted on 4 years ago

Keep in mind: Always try and make things as clear and easy as possible for your visitors. What may be obvious to you may not be to your visitors.

Do make the site attractive. Avoid too many colors and busy background
Do make the titles on your web page make sense. Instead of “sleep in paradise” title the page “Accommodations” – it is more straight forward & to the point
Do use text that your customers understand. Industry terminology will be lost on regular people (I.E say “horseback riding” not “equestrian experience”)
Do use light flash for attractiveness and interest (Scrolling image etc). Don’t go overboard however with things moving all over the place. People tend to get distracted and leave a site when there’s a lot of moving elements.
Do make the site easy to navigate. Visitors should find what they are looking for in 3 steps or less… And be able to go back where they came from.
Do include calls to action where appropriate. Tell people what you want them to do (donate now, reserve, contact us, etc.)
Do use a consistent menu throughout the site. Don’t make people have to search for your menu
Do keep important information “Above the fold.” Don’t make your visitors scroll down several pages to find the good stuff
Do use consistent fonts, colors, structure, and layouts throughout the website. You want people to focus on our message not sort through a menagerie of designs
Do make it easy for people to contact you. Put your contact information on every page and have a clear contact us tab.
Do use footer navigation and a site map. It’s all about making the site user-friendly (and search engine like it too)
Do use a search engine and user-friendly technology.
Don’t force people to download a new browser or special plug-in to see your site. They will just get frustrated
Don’t build a site in all-flash. It takes long to load, you can’t use the back button, search engine hate it, it is hard to update
Don’t use fuzzy, unclear small pictures. Nothing is more unprofessional than out-of-focus, grainy pictures, that are hard to figure out.
Don’t’ use pictures with large file sizes. Optimizes and resize pictures for the web before uploading them NOT after.
Don’t underline text unless it’s a link you’ll just confuse people
Don’t center, bold or capitalize all your text. It makes it hard to read
Don’t be creative with your menu links. Name your menu links what they are, don’t make people guess
Don’t let people leave your site. Links to other sites or documents should open in new windows
Don’t have music or sound start automatically. There’s nothing worse than having uninvited music start when your headphones are on and volumes are full