Tips And Tricks For Web Design Success
Are you a new web designer? Do you know where to begin with your designs? Good web design relies upon basic concepts and fundamentals that help make a website functional and pleasing. Can you accomplish this? If not, try using the tips that are listed below to make better web designs.
Make sure your text and background has the proper contrast. There's evidence showing that white text on a black background is easiest for most people to read, but other colors are fine so long as they're readable. Also keep in mind that people with visual impairments may not be able to read your site if the contrast is poor. Check to see if your site complies with various contrast standards using the tool at http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html .
When you are creating graphics or photos for your website, be sure to keep the file size small. If your graphics are too large, your page will load slowly and your visitors will leave. You can find many free or inexpensive graphics programs online that will optimize your images before you load them to your website.
Keep finding fresh information all around you to boost your knowledge of web design. It is easy to do a Google search to find new ideas and information about web design.
If you want to maximize the potential of your website design, ensure that your pages appear correctly on all web browsers, so any visitor can view them. What works in Chrome may not present properly in Safari, Internet Explorer or Firefox. Before you set your site to go live, look at how every page shows up in all the major browsers.
Let people cancel any action they have started. An action may refer to signing up for e-mail notifications, newsletter subscriptions or filling out web forms. Visitors do not appreciate not being able to cancel things that they are not interested in completing, and they may not wish to return to your site for future purchases.
Your background is the keystone of your design. Some sites include complex or patterned GIF backgrounds that can make text hard to read, no matter how novel it may look. Choose a background to work with your website, not conflict with it, and your visitors will be able to better read and understand your site, and your point of view.
To help keep your site visitors happy, do not underline words. Underline words on the internet signifies that the word is a clickable link. If you have too many words on your pages that are underlined with being clickable links, then your visitors will be frustrated after continuously trying to click on them.
When designing your website, you should utilize cascading style sheets, or CSS. These style sheets can be applied to every webpage on your website, and will ensure that the user experience is consistent throughout the website. They are also effective for making quick design changes to your website due to the fact that you only need to change the style sheet as opposed to making alterations on every webpage.
Try including real customer testimonials. Very few want to be the first to try a product or service, so let customers know that others have tried your wares and that they were pleased with them. Try asking some clients that have done projects with you to create a short paragraph about their experience with your company, to put on your site.
Try to make sure that any music or pictures that you're linking to is hosted on your own web server. Do not hotlink to any other website images. This can be construed as bandwidth theft and it could put you in violation of a copyright too. It's not worth the risk.
When selecting a domain name, it's important that you're creative. A big part of web design is having a site with a good, on-topic name. Having a catchy, relevant name will make people remember your website just as much as any design features would. Don't think that a name isn't an important feature.
Begin by making smaller websites, so you can see your strengths and weaknesses before starting a major site. You want to start off with maybe a couple of pages that are basic with just information and text, and see how you feel from there.
We are all used to seeing the letters "www" at the beginning of a website address. But this well known sub-domain is not always necessary to gain access to a site. Be sure that your site works with or without this, as you could lose a lot of traffic by users who don't know that it works both ways.
As you have read, you may be a new designer that doesn't know where to begin with your website designs but there are various concepts and fundamentals that you should apply to your designs. Upon learning these, you can create some great web designs and the tips in this article should help you start.