For those that have been reading Technically Easy for some time, you may have noticed that I modify my blog design every few months. Since switching over to Wordpress, however, I have kept the same template, with a few modifications. In the past week, I have been creating a new blog design from scratch, and have thought about some of the design issues that I have seen online.
In this post I will talk about my thoughts on Web page designs, and what I think are common issues with many designs in use today.
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I like to write posts that can help others complete a task, whether it is with computers, web sites/blogs, networking, or digital photos. Some times, I come across questions that get asked on a frequent basis. While the questions may seem to be simple to answer for some, I also realize that many people don’t have the technical knowledge others may have acquired through the years.
This post is going to talk about creating header images for a web site or blog, and how to make them link back to a home page. If you are new to HTML, creating such an image is very easy to do.
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As I visit web sites one thing that always get my attention is the amount of time it takes to complete a page download. With web sites using more images to display the content, it can at times take much longer than necessary to finish downloading a page.
The biggest problem with the sites that do use a lot of images on each page is the size of the images. Some who manage web sites don’t realize that images need to be resized outside of the browser to decrease the download size. Specifying the size of an image in the HTML code will only shrink the displaying of the image, not the actual size. To shrink the file sizes you will need an image editor. In this post I will list a few image editors that can be used to edit your images for your web site.
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When you are designing a web site it is important to always test the design in many browsers. The reason for this is that different browsers may display your web site in different ways.
It has always been a difficult task to test your web site design in many browsers and many versions of the different browsers. To help with this there is a web site that can do this all for you, and provide screenshots of your web site as it is viewed in the browsers.
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I enjoy using Entrecard on a daily basis. It allows me to find new blogs that I would have never have visited without going through Entrecard. At the same time I also find blogs that I would never visit again, not because of the content, but because of how they are designed.
In this post I will list several points that I consider to be a bad for Web sites and blogs, and items that should be avoided if you want to keep your visitors coming back for more.
What You Should Avoid When Managing a Web Site
I have written many posts regarding designing a good Web site, at least in my opinion. These are outlined in Blog Designing Tips for New Bloggers and Web Site Design Tips.
Now let’s look at some bad points that you should avoid when designing Web sites.
- Creating a complex design.
Avoid adding too many links, objects, and ads to the sidebars and focus more on providing an easy to find and read navigational links. Your visitors won’t stay around hunting for a specific link. Keep the navigation simple.
- Popup Ads.
These windows that open when you visit a site are really annoying, and in reality serve no real purpose as most users would just close them anyway. Making money with ads is okay by me, just as long as they are incorporated in the Web pages and don’t display in a new window.
- Background Music.
I have visited many Web sites that include some music that loads and then plays in the background. If you would like music on your site, provide the play option to the user and don’t play it automatically.
- Flash animation – no real content.
I usually visit sites looking for specific information. When a site’s navigation and content are all contained in flash animation, I usually close the window. Although flash can look great, I prefer the standard text to Flash on a Web site. Besides, search engines can’t index content properly if it is built in Flash animation.
- Copied content – no original ideas.
Don’t copy the hard work of others and post it on your site. You will probably be punished by the search engines for having duplicate content, and won’t get many visitors in the end. You could write a brief summary of the Web page and then link back to the original site.
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Many Large Images.
Many times I have visited a personal Web site and had to wait for several minutes for some images to download. If you would like to use photos on your site, make them smaller in an image editor first, and then upload them. Don’t let the browser do the resizing since they will still be large, and just look smaller.
Summary
This post has provided several items that you should avoid on your Web site if you want your visitors to keep returning for more. The items listed above are the most common annoyances on Web sites today, and they are the reasons I refuse to re-visit a Web site.
Now the question to you is: what would you add to the list to make it more complete?
