Website Design

The internet and websites have come a long way indeed. Lightning fast internet connections have replaced the old dial up ones and similarly high quality animated websites have replaced the old framed ones. E-commerce is on an all time boom and hence today a website has a lot of potential. A lot more attention is given to the website design. Apart from being attractive, the website design needs to be easily accessible and functional as well. Gone are the days when a good-looking website alone attracted visitors. Now web content also plays a very important role. Easy site navigation, logical layout and of course good quality graphics are some of the key aspects of a good website design.

 

This is one aspect that you might never have considered before but believe me, it is more important than you think. What do you expect from a website? It should be easily accessible. All its functions should be easily accessible and fully functional, no matter what browser you are using to browse it. You might even be using a device like a PDA or a GPRS enabled mobile phone. The same stands true for your website. You should design it in such a way that it is compatible with most of the widely used browsers. You cannot design it for all the browsers in use today for there are hundreds of them. But make sure that you check for compatibility with at least the most common ones. You might have to sacrifice a bit on the creative and design aspect but then each one of the browser should be able to render your website without facing too many problems. This will ensure that your website reaches out to a lot more viewers and potential customers.

 

We all lead busy lives and the last thing that a visitor to your website would want is slow loading graphics and images. Small graphics are a wise choice as they load faster and hence save a lot of time for the visitor. If you are using JPEG images a lot more, then you need to use compression techniques so that the size can be reduced without having to compromise on image quality. You also need to ensure that you provide text alternatives for text-only browsers. Also the web content plays a key role here. While you want to appear as an informative and reliable source, you do not want to look like an unwanted clutter bag. So choose your web content sensibly. Remove all unwanted information. Try to keep it short, sweet and to the point. Remember, you have maximum chances of making a sale if you provide the right information in the best possible way.

A lot of people think that more the multimedia on a website, the better it looks. But this is a wrong notion. While multimedia can look good, leave the option to the visitor. For example, if you have a one minute long flash intro then give the visitor the option to skip it. Similarly, provide options to turn music on and off. Always keep in mind that a visitor will simply close the browser if your website does not load in 10 seconds.