Taste comes in many forms . What may seem poor website design



to one, may be good website design to another. Website design

is an expensive and extensive part of any website build Going

two and Going to and fro between the client and the designer

is a costly business, but it doesn't need to be. Commonly most

clients are currently looking for clean web design.

The search engine experts will tell you that the best web sites

provide the content to the search engines of the top of the page

followed by links and other content . This normally means that

the best position for a menu is on the right hand side. However

by using CSS (cascading style sheets) it is possible to block

the content so that you can position the content blocks for

search engines at the beginning of the code for the page and

show it in the middle or to the right as you wish. So with

this in mind we will look at the most suitable choice of

design for your website

The majority of web sites come in three different formats.

They are one column, two column or three column web sites.

The choice of each should be dictated by the amount of

information which needs to be shown.

Then there's the size of the displayable web page. We have

to take into account monitor size. Four years ago 35% of

monitors were 15" monitors allowing of viewable width of

800pixels which everyone designed for. Actually 760px so

that a horizontal scroll bar were not appear underneath.

Times change and now we have to consider widescreen

monitors and legacy monitors. Again the decision needs to

be made dependent on what information is to be displayed.

If there's not much information to show then a single

column fixed width 760pixel page would suffice . if a lot

of information is on the page a three columns system which

fits to the size of the screen would be ideal.

When we have decided which type of layout to use we can

then elaborate on the style of the header. The header

should not be to large in height as this pushes the

relevant information down the page . There is an

expression called "above the fold" and this is what you

can actually see on the screen when you open up a web

page. You want your user to see your relevant content

so be in mind of the height of your header. The heading

is where the initial focus of the site is found, so

combining good imagery with a strong company logo you

should be on to and a winner.

Now comes the detail. We have initially decided on a clean

layout, so very large block like images are out. The images

should be relevant to the website content and should guide

the user to read or in the case of shopping carts guide the

user to click on a product. Borders on the images are often

nice And simple single line borders can keep images looking

uniform unless of course a white background brings out the

best in that image.

With detail in mind menu buttons which are mostly text but

have a nice design to stand out increase the affordance that

they are menu buttons. Content separators can be a stylish a

way to separate text. Text headings can be made a little more

elaborate to focus on what the content is about. Small touches

like read more buttons, go back buttons and search buttons,

really do add to the clean effect of the web site if they

complement the overall colour scheme, not too dramatically

but sensibly.

In summary any clean design can be an affordable design,

but the layout should reflect the intended content. Do not

forget those small styling touches as they really can add to

the overall affect of any websites design.

Article written by Neil MacLeod.