Basic Principles Web Designers Shouldn't Forget

Hi Everybody,
Following are some basic principles which web designers shouldn't forget :

1. Home Page : The home page decides the fate of a website. A well-designed home page can give a glimpse of the site. It informs visitor about the website and provides top level navigation. If you want to implement a Flash into, give a link to skip it. Remember to place the link outside the Flash. Otherwise, it will make the user to wait until the Flash movie is loaded.

2. Know the Hot Spots : Generally web users are impatient and they don't read all. The scan and search for some fixed points that can guide them through the content of the page. So, web designers should know the hot areas of the typical scanning process. They have to design the page accordingly.

3. Navigation Consistency : There are several key areas in a web page, where the people are used to look. Place the navigation there and don't experiment with it. In a multi-page web site, users must be able to move from one page to another without any difficulty. Users are not ready to learn your site's navigation and they readily leave for other sites.

4. Font Size : The font size set in a web page should make it readable without any effort. So don't set the font size too small. Optimal size seems to be 12-13 points. There are many different sized monitors around and different resolution settings available. The visitor may not have the same set up as you. So it is better to make the font size adjustable.

5. Image Format : When selecting GIF or JPEG for your web page, it is important to consider the type of image you will be working with. Use GIF format if your image contains text or flat colors without gradients. JPEG is perfect for the images with fine tonal variations in colors, such as images with gradients or metallic images. Selecting the right format helps improve the quality and keeps the file size to the minimum.

6. Speed : If your web page doesn't load fast, you will lose visitors. It is a busy world and people are not ready to wait for a long time. You can reduce the download time by reducing size of your graphics as much as possible without compromising on quality.

7. Test the Site Before Going Live : Your website could give a strong opinion about you or your company and visitors won't bother to send you a mail, if some of your links don't work. So, please check your website for errors before publishing. When published, it should not have any under construction" or coming soon" messages.