Page design
- Use white space
- Mostly content not navigation
- Simplicity better than complexity
- Separate meaning and presentation
- Use stylesheets for presentation
- Resolution independent design (percentages not fixed pixel width)
- Relative not absolute font size
- Don’t include text in graphics
- Don’t exclude older browsers
- Pages should load fast ( <10 seconds , warn if not)
- Keep graphics to minimum
- Useful initial information (e.g. ALT text & meaningful info at top)
- Use Standards
- Short meaningful link text (not ‘click here’)
- Helpful Link title
- Colour & underline indicate links
- Visited links differentiated by colour
- Don’t automatically open new windows
- No more than 2 fonts
- No frames
Content design
- Keep text short and succinct
- Write to assist scanning/skimming (e.g. bullets)
- Split long information into multiple pages
- Most important information first
- Check spelling and grammar
- Use short and meaningful rather than cute headlines
- Within page links may confuse
- Avoid scrolling navigation pages
- Use short meaningful page titles (don’t start with ‘a/the’)
- High contrast text and background colours
- Left justify
- Avoid graphic backgrounds
- Don’t use too small fonts
- Use multimedia sparingly and appropriately
- Caption/subtitle/transcriptions for video/audio
- Audio/text descriptions for video
- Use fewer images on higher level pages (i.e. Use when know users interested)
- Use cropping and scaling to reduce image size
Site design
- Distinctive Home Page with navigation, news, search
- Don’t use splash screens
- Use only appropriate and useful metaphor in design (e.g. shopping cart)
- Show where the user is, has been and can go
- Structure site for user tasks
- Navigation breadth and depth (e.g. Breadcrumb list)
- Support user controlled navigation
- Sitemaps with current location
- Reduce navigational clutter
- Subsites if very large site
- Search of site
- Useful short page description & keywords
- Choose appropriate easy to remember and spell domain name
- Don’t change URL of page
- Use human understandable URL site page file structure
Common Errors
- Structuring site to reflect company structure not user tasks and views
- Visual not interactive design focus
- Linear writing style
