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My Web Site Design Philosophy

The web is the first place many people turn to get a quick feel for a company. If you have an unprofessional or disorganized web site, you might lose potential clients without even realizing it. Inability to quickly locate information, unintuitive navigation, excess imagery, and broken links can quickly frustrate web surfers and cause them to "click out" of your pages.

Below are several aspects I consider when creating web sites:

Content

The heart of a web site is the content. No matter how pretty a web site looks, it will only be a successful marketing tool if it provides the information that potential customers want. Before creating content, I take time to get to know the target audience and research competitive sites. I also like to see copies of all other marketing materials used by a company so I can ensure that a cohesive message is being promoted throughout the marketing communications mix.

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Navigational Structure

I begin all web site design projects with a detailed outline of the proposed web structure. I believe that all main sections of a web site need to be readily accessible from all pages, so that people may find what they are looking for quickly, and without needing to go through several levels. Creating an organizational outline not only saves time once the design process begins, but also helps my client give feedback early on in the process, preventing more time consuming and costly changes down the road. Larger web sites also should either include a search feature or a site map. A quick link to a contact page or to an e-mail address should also be available on all pages.

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User Interface Design

Site visitors must be able to easily understand how to move from page to page and use any special features. A user should not be made to search for controls, or struggle to learn difficult features.

Consistency in design and layout is vital. Navigational controls should remain in the same location on all pages. The font, size, and color of headings and paragraph text should also be consistent throughout all pages. The text also must be readable; with higher resolution monitors becoming more prevalent, what is readable at lower resolutions, may appear much smaller at higher resolutions.

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Graphics and Animations

Excessive use of graphics should be avoided at all costs. Whether you want to believe it or not, there are still some people who use slower dial-up connections, and if a page takes too long to download, you run the risk of "back button syndrome."

Features such as blinking graphics and constantly running animations only distract visitors from the real content. If an animation is required to show a process, then the user should have the ability to turn it on and off as needed.

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Pop-Up Windows

Most current browsers have built-in pop-up blockers that can cause trouble with web sites using this feature. While pop-up windows are useful in certain circumstances, it is becoming increasingly difficult to use them effectively. If required, users should be made aware that they must allow pop-ups from the site to benefit from the full features.

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Page Length

While it is typically preferred to limit page length, my philosophy is that as long as quick page jump links are provided to main page topics, as well as back to the page top (as is provided on this page), short page length is not a necessity. One advantage of not splitting up longer pages into shorter ones is that it is more conducive to printing out web pages. Visitors who like to print pages out for future reference will appreciate this!

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Printer Friendly Pages

Have you ever come across a web site page that you try to print where the text along the right side gets cut off? Unfortunately, this is a very common occurrence with web sites that employ fixed width tables for layout purposes. Fixed width tables are very useful to ensure that web layout appears similiar for the variety of monitor resolutions in use. However, they typically are not printer friendly. I always recommenced using a script option that creates a printer friendly page for visitors. Not only do these scripts make sure that text does not get cropped from the printed page, but they can also remove extraneous graphics.

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Cascading Style Sheets

Use of cascading style sheets (CSS) allows site-wide style changes very quickly. Changing the size, color, or font of paragraphs and headings can quickly be accomplished by editing just one file. Thus, if down the road you decide you would like to change the color or size of all headings, all that is required is change the settings of of the CSS. If a CSS is not used, then every page must be updated separately, which is much more time consuming and costly.

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Metatag Keywords

Metatags are "behind the scenes" keywords that help people find your pages through search engines like Google. All pages in your web site should employ the use of metatags to best promote your site.

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Web Site Categories

Biotech | Canine | Equine | Freelance | Golf | Marine | Retail | Tourist