2. PURPOSE
What is the purpose of your website?
Who is your intended audience?
How to get people to your website?
What do you expect them to do once on
your website? Are they doing it?
What is the most popular content?
3. KEY ELEMENTS OF THE WEBSITE
Title (can use
Photoshop)
Headlines= serif
Stories= sans serif
Pictures
Sections
Navigation tabs
Contact info
Standard Layout
Average 3 columns
Z-pattern
2-3 standard fonts
4. PLANNING
Make it Easy to Find Stuff
Put some thought into organization.
Minimize clicking
Include a way to get back to the home page,
on every page
Include a menu on every page
Readers must have a clear understanding
of where they are in your site and how to get
back “home”
5. CONTENT
Use Graphics that
fit content of page
Graphics are small
Internet speeds
Bandwidths
Loading time
Images= 72 dpi
Don't distract your
visitors with blinking
or scrolling text,
animated GIFs, or
auto-loading sound
6. DISTRACTIONS
Animation and sounds are distracting
Avoid scrolling text
Don't put text over image backgrounds
Don't let flashy multimedia ruin your site
Flashy graphics and multimedia controls may
look nice, but they're bad when they make it
hard for visitors to get the information they
want from your site
7. PAGES
No more than 11 inches wide
Pages are based on percentages/pixels
99% of users have screens that are at least
1024x768 pixels
Average of 800 pixels wide
No more than 2 scrolls down
8. BACKGROUND
Use contrasting colors or simple backgrounds to
make your text easy to read (Muted Colors)
It's hard to read light text on a light background,
or dark text on a dark background.
There are also some color combinations that
don't work.
Avoid white, black, neon colors
Use black fonts
Muted Color Designs
9.
10. LINKS
Don't underline words if they're not links
Make links blue or underlined, or both
Users expect links in body copy to be blue and
underlined, because that's the way they appear on
99% of other websites.
If you use a different color then at least the
underline is a clue that a link is a link.
Likewise, if you remove the underline but keep the
link blue, then the color is the clue that a link is a
link.
Explain what you're linking to.
Don't open internal links in a new window.
11. LINKS
Right way
Check out our product specials, best sellers,
and gift ideas
Wrong way
For product specials, click here. For best
sellers click here. For gift ideas click here.
12. LINKS
Test your links (internal, external)
Remove dead external links periodically
Include a "Last Modified" date on the top or
bottom of your pages