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Web Design Tips: Making Your Site User Friendly

Once you've found your perfect web host from our list of recommended providers you'll need to focus on what to do with all that space, before you get started putting all your great ideas on the web take a look at our top web design tips to make the most of your site

What's your point: use titles to let the user know what the site is about fast! If your readers cannot tell what the point of your site is in seconds they'll just move on, so set out your basic ideas quickly and simply.

Keep your text simple: avoid over filling your page, a huge block of text will have most users switching to more accessible web sites. Break up your text with paragraphs, bullet points, lists etc. A good web design should never over crowd the senses!

Keep your Fonts simple: you might be trying to make your site look exciting and different BUT you should always avoid using fancy fonts, small text or more than a maximum of three font types per page if you want your site to remain readable and appealing. Remember people are here to see what you have to say so keep the design format accessible.

Don't clutter your site with images: badges for networks and communities can make it much easier for users to add your site to Social Bookmarking Communities but unless you keep them neatly contained they can look very messy. The same goes for your other images so limit there use, and where they are needed keep them within a unified web page design rather than placing them all over the place. For more information on Social Bookmarking see our Search Engine Optimization article here

Don't make a homepage that only exists to launch the 'real' website: users attention spans are incredibly short so don't keep them from the information your site has to offer with intros or launch pads.

Make your links easy to follow: rather than just saying 'click here' include some text as to where 'here' is within the link anchor, this make navigation straight forward for users and can help search engines read your content. Also never cloak the link destinations from appearing in the status bar, not showing where a link is pointing makes your website look shady and dishonest.

Make links obvious: your viewers know what links 'should' look like, so avoid altering there appearance to much e.g. keep all the links in your web design underlined and in a standard color (usually blue). The flip side of this is obviously don't underline or use the color blue on any unclickable text.

Use CSS not just HTML for a professional web design: embrace the changes and use CSS, this will add a professional air to your site and is a much easier and more reliable method of changing site style.

Make sure your site reads correctly on all major browsers: all browsers will read your coding slightly differently but this can have dramatic impacts on how professional your site looks, so make sure you check how it appears in all the major browsers e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Netscape. Compatibility can be a real problem when using certain budget HTML editors like FrontPage, if this is all you have to work with I would suggest hand coding your site to ensure compatibility.

Keep your navigation simple: Java script and image based navigation can indeed look very pretty, but they are also notoriously unreliable and unreadable by search engines, so keep things simple with text based navigation. Though if you insist on high tech menus always supply alternative text based navigation at the bottom of the page for when problems occur.

Avoid drop down menus: this just hides information from the user unless they interact with your web site, and as mentioned the attention span of viewers can be very short so if they can't see the link they want almost immediately there is a very good change you'll lose them for good so make alterations to your page design accordingly.

Don't open new browser windows: When creating links don't open new windows in the users browser, it might seem like a good way to ensure a viewer stays on your site but it tends to annoy users by breaking the 'back' button route, which the majority of viewers will be most comfortable using when navigating.

Do not overuse moving images: When making your first web page there is a temptation to use all the image resources you can think of to try and make your site as attractive as possible, and whilst you might find lots of moving images fun your viewers will simply find them irritating. Additionally it should be noted that search engines can't read images or flash so avoid making key points (e.g. titles etc) in these formats. For more information on search engine optimization see our Search Engine Optimization article here.

Don't play audio: not only will your site take longer to load but you are much more like to have viewers hitting the 'back' button as soon as the first note chimes than entertain anyone, remember you don't know where or when people are browsing your site so can't know if audio is appropriate, for example office workers will not be impressed by your favorite track. If you need audio for any reason make sure it is user controllable e.g. the user starts it and can easily stop it.

I hope these design tips have given you some guidance on how to make the most of your site, if you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to email info@better-hosting.com