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There are many tools which
will enable you to create clear, effective websites. However, if you
are a first time web designer, it is helpful to
- gain an understanding of effective websites
- fit your concept into a process of design
- have fun creating your website!
There are three ways to create a website:
- HTML: a standard or system of plain
text and tags which formats a page. Can be thought of as the
programming language of the Internet
- HTML Editor: HomeSite and BBEdit provide tools
and shortcuts for HTML formatting and editing
- WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get):
FrontPage and Pagemill create pages/websites without knowing HTML.
FrontPage has the advantage of working directly on the server (no need
to transfer completed files)
Summary of design:
- identify your audience
- motivate your audience: treat them with respect and
provide proactive feedback opportunities
- establish clear, measurable web site objectives or design
purposes
- acknowledge reactions, effort & success, and built in help
for failure to meet expectations
- Content
- focus and define your website content
- language should be simple, understandable for an international
audience
- promote scanning for important concepts
- build in white space
- prioritize your information, as with an outline
- Navigation:
- simple
- clear
- layered (site maps)
- organized (think "outline")
- Incorporating graphics
Developing websites begins with its text and structure.
After the basic structure is developed, the content should be analyzed
as to what would benefit from illustration whether line or
photographic graphics
Principles:
- choose a background and text colors with high contrast
- use a browser safe palette
to be consistent across platform and browser
- format text consistently
- avoid color changes
- avoid italics (hard to read), color changes, and underlining
(mistaken for links)
- avoid overly-large text
- avoid textured backgrounds
that make it difficult to read
- illustrate content with simple, symbiotic, scaled
(small), stagnant (non-moving) graphics
- avoid "dancing dogs":
graphics that show off but do nothing for content
- file formats: compressed (.jpg) photographs, and
drawings in (.gif)
Feedback to improve
this page
(please specify which page)
The Study Guides and Strategies web site was created and is
maintained by Joe
Landsberger,
academic web site developer at the University
of St. Thomas (UST), St. Paul, Minnesota. It is collaboratively
maintained across institutional and national boundaries, and last revised
September 04, 2002 .
Permission is granted to freely copy, adapt, print,
transmit, and distribute
Study Guides in settings that benefit learners. On the WWW, however, please link
rather than put up your own page since pages are frequently modified and
improved in consideration of educational research. No request to link is
necessary. Additional contributions and translations are warmly
received.
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