Uniformity
- Uniformity in Web Page Design
- Organization in Web Design
- Accessibility and Web Design
- Use of Color in Web Design
- Style and Options
1. Every page of your site should look like it belongs to the same site.
Repetition makes this happen.
2. Repetitive elements provide the user with consistency, focus, and predictability.
3. Have essential information and navigational aids at the same spot on every page.
4. Consistent methods of displaying information keeps your user from being confused.
5. Keep uniformity in background, font, colors, and size of text.
6. Make navigational buttons and bars easy to understand and use.
1. Divide your content into logical units, carefully planning before you begin page design.
2. The organization of your site should be obvious and follow a hierarchical order: from a general overview to more specific submenus and content pages.
3. Chunk your information into bits of five, but not more than seven factors.
4. Your user should be able to find the information she/he needs within three clicks.
5. Keep basic information in logical and predictable places for users. For example, if you put link information at the bottom of the page, keep this information there throughout the site.
6. Your site should contain credible, original content, and not just links. On the other hand, don't recopy what someone else has said; just link to it.
7. Larger sites should have site maps and search boxes to aid users.
You want to design your site to be accessed by as many users as possible. This would include users with limited capacities of learning, sight, hearing, and physical disabilities.
Think about:
-those who have difficulty comprehending text
-those unable to use a mouse or keyboard
-those with text-only screens, small screens, or slow internet connections
-those who may have a limited understanding of your language
-those with an early version browser, or a different operating system
Eight ways you can help:
1. Be sure that you have high contrast between your background and text.
2. Give your users more than one way to navigate from page to page.
3. Use simple, straightforward language.
4. Number items in a list or tell how many items are in your list.
5. Use a "br tag" at the end of each line for screen readers.
6. Use vertical bars to separate items in a table.
7. Use "alt tags" with your graphics images.
8. Make sure that any graphic links also have text links.
There are two sites that can help you evaluate whether your site design is up to accessibility standards. They are: Bobby and Web Reference Accessibility.
1. There should be a high contrast between the text and the background.
2. Make sure your colors aren't too bright. Pastels and natural earth tones generally work well.
3. Be sure to set all your colors--text, background, link color, and visited link color.
4. Use no more than four colors per page and seven for the entire site.
5. Don't overuse the bold and italic functions.
6. Be sure your text is legible and not larger than 14 font.
For some wonderful advice about color and design, I would encourage you to visit the pages done by Dmitry Kirsanov at web reference.com
Style and Options
finding uniformity in your pages
Humans are strange creatures. We like things to be uniform in layout and we resist change. There is an axiom in Total Quality Management, William Demming's world wide accepted way to build a better you in the work place which goes, "People don't mind change, they mind being changed." I find that this simple statement holds true even in the way we surf a website.
When we first check out a new site, we look around for structure. Where are the links, how are images and text arranged and we accept this structure. Then we click on a link within that page and expect new imformation, but with similar design layout. We resist the need to look around for a common theme or structure, we want everything to have uniformity. It is change and we resist change.
Think of this. You sit down in your car and put the keys into the ignition without even looking. It may be hid well behind the steering wheel, but you never miss slam dunking your key in the hole. Now what happens when you borrow a car, where does your hand automatically go? Of course, to your car's ignition spot. Even worse, what would you do if every time you sat down in your car and the ignition was in a different spot? Believe me, you'd be looking for a new car in no time. We resist change. It's in our nature.
Keeping this simple, but powerful fact of human nature in mind, we can design web pages that assist surfing, not resist surfing. Sites that are human friendly are sites that have repeat visitors. We limit our own exposure as web site creators "IF" we fail to meet this minimum requirement of uniformity.
Style is an extention the way WE want to be seen and felt by others. It's our palette in which we paint a clear picture of the way WE see the world and more importantly the way in which WE want the world to see us. Keeping in mind that uniformity in structure appeals to human minds, we are only left with adding our feelings and our thoughts within page uniformity.
It is actually easier than it sounds, since we are humans too, we work well within structure. By putting a common theme to our pages, we remove any "excess need" to express our creativity in the "wrong place" and channel our creativity where it belongs, it the content of our pages them selves.
Which style works for us is a very unique thing. I have several basic page requirements that I strive to achieve. If I fail in meeting these requirements, I accept this failure as long as the page meets it's own purpose. It makes no sense to add images to a page which doesn't require them to fullfill the purpose of the page. There is no need to add links with in a page, just for the sake of adding links. Everything on your pages should have purpose to the page, not just an attempt to meet your desire of uniformity.
Pages are a complete thought. Images, links, design and feel are just means at which to achieve the complete thought. Going over board often causes confusion and defeats the purpose of the page. Thus it is important to treat every page as an individual, but strive for basic uniformity. It makes me think of the 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle of 101 Dalmations. Individually each piece looks similar, but not exactly the same. But they all have common themes and arrange in a logical order to express the finished puzzle. This is your goal in designing your web site.
http://www.beemaster.com/design/style.htm