Website design guide, tips and techniques

Web Page Size:

The layout must be designed to fit comfortably in a minimum screen size of 1024 x 768 pixels. This can be achieved by making all areas to be accessible with a minimal amount of scrolling in a smaller browser window.

Centering:

Horizontal centring of your page layout is acceptable in most situations because

In contrast vertical centring should be avoided where possible as there are known issues for users with smaller screen sizes and incompatabilities occur across computer platforms and browsers. If vertical centring is required, then design for a smaller screen size of approximately 800 x 600 pixels.

Navigation:

The primary navigation should consist of text based links for two reasons, this helps search engines to index and find more pages in your site that are relevant to the terms used.

If you are looking to make the links more interesting try using Images in the background.

Fonts:

Until the HTML 5 is full evolved, it is best to use the following web safe fonts: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman/Times, Courier New / Courier, Verdana, Georgia, Comic Sans MS, Trebuchet MS.

Flash:

Avoid Flash based web sites. These are bad for search engine optimising. Some areas of flash may be used where only imagery is involved. eg. a banner. Flash should not be used for the primary navigation or content.

Transparency:

Creating transparency of images and backgrounds is possible with web 2.0 technology. However please be aware that transparency can present some browser compatibility issues when used for flyout / drop down menus.

Interactive Elements:

Popups should be restricted to the same window. Due to the increase in users security programs, popups are locked out. Instead use CSS to create layers on the working web page.
e.g. gallery zoom items will appear above the existing content within the same window.

Hover or rollover fade in and out is possible for image elements with HTML text.

A web site design team should treat every business uniquely and.focus on the most important elements of business marketing strategies.

About the Author

BMD has established a number of strategic partners, from programmers to service providers, to draw together a team of professionals that forms a solid foundation for web site design, online development, Australia.

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