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Website Basics

The Three C's of Web Design

Written on June 25, 2009 by Lipstick Nerd

Clean
If you were trying to sell your house, would you leave your stuff laying around everywhere when potential buyers come to look? If you were serious about selling, then probably not. You’d tidy the place up and make it smell lemon-y fresh.

The same goes for websites. If you’ve got a graphic here and a graphic there, that’s just peachy-keen, but if you’ve got them all over the place with no apparent cohesion whatsoever, it is going to turn them off. Way off. They’ll be Googling again in a matter of seconds. Please, don’t make them Google.

The key is to only use graphics when absolutely necessary. For instance:

  • To make the site more visually appealing
  • To display a chart or graph of some kind
  • To give pictoral gratification with your text

You may have seen a site or two that had a few dozen graphics all over the place and thought it was nice. If so, I’m guessing you might be one of those people at Christmas time who covers every square inch of their house with Christmas lights, puts 10 of those mechanical reindeer in their yard, has five of the Frosty the Snowman blow-up lawn decorations, and presents a nativity scene that is bigger than their own house.

I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s just a matter of preference and you happen to be in the minority.

Clear

When I say “clear,” I mean it in two ways.

First, the content must be clear and easy to read. Using dark text over a dark background (or light on light) is as annoying as it is senseless.

Also, make the text large enough for normal people to decipher. The only way visitors would be able to read 6pt text is if they put their face an inch away from the computer screen and squint. Don’t make people squint. They hate squinting. Not only does it strain the eyes, but it also creates premature wrinkles could lower their self-esteem. Make people squint, and they will end up having very low self-confidence and will resent you for it.

When adding images to the site, make sure they are of decent enough quality so that they don’t think the picture of your dog is a picture of a family of rats. Photos with lots of different colors should be in jpeg format and set at least at medium quality (5 to 7).

Second, the purpose of your site must be clear. If you are trying to sell cake, yet you’ve got flowers, fairies and butterflies all over the page without a cake in sight, people will arrive at your site and think there has been a mistake. They wanted a cake store, but apparently they ended up on the Enchanted Forest Website. Make sure the design reflects the purpose of the website.

Also, don’t forget to leave your poetic genius out of your written content. Forget the similes, metaphors, and symbolism. Just get right to the point. No sugar-coating or beating around the bush. Just tell your visitors straight up what they will find on your web space.

Clever
Be creative, be original, and be interesting! If your site looks exactly like 1,000 other websites, visitors will be instantly bored. Keep their attention with an appealing color scheme and layout. Add some cool graphics (but remember, make them clear).

To come up with a neat design, open up Photoshop or some other image editing program. If you’re not savvy with those, do some drawing and coloring. Create a bunch of designs for your site and you’ll find out that you can bang out some great ideas. In my experience, I have always like the ninth and tenth designs better than the first, second or third. Eventually, you will come up with something you absolutely love and others will love too.

One more thing … Go easy on the Flash, people!
Even though it doesn’t start with a C, I think it is very important to mention.

Look, I know Flash animations are super cool. They attract the eye and grab your attention. It is great to use Flash, but in moderation.

Flash is like the Fats, Oils and Sweets category of the food pyramid. Everyone loves this category, but if you eat too much fats, oils and sweets, it slows your body down and ends up hurting it. Flash is no different, except it does not have any bodily repurcussions. If you overindulge on the Flash, it will end up slowing your website down and eventually make it useless. What use is there for a website if it takes so long to load and nobody wants to visit it?

So, now you are aware of the Three C’s plus the dangers of Flash. Now you can live a happy life!

Run little rabbit, run!



Filed under Website Basics

Let's Do the Time Warp

Written on June 19, 2009 by Code Monkey

As Johnstown quickly approaches the kick-off for this year's Thunder in the Valley motorcycle rally, there has been much buzz around our office over a band called "Giants of Science" - they'll be playing at the Richland Fire Hall from 9 to midnight on Saturday, June 27th.

Being wholly out of the local music loop for quite a few years, I ventured onto the web for more information. Upon locating the "Giants of Science" website, I remembered very clearly what attracted me to this career - a compulsive need to make the web a prettier place.

Any old school geeks out there will remember a little place called 'Geocities' - sort of the original free web server. Many, many of us created our first websites there. And for the few of us fortunate enough to still hold accounts, we are able to look back in horror at what was once considered top-of-the-line, cutting-edge development. But times have changed, technology has evolved and developers have honed their skills far beyond the standards of 1995. Yet some of these gems of days gone by remain, floating eternally through cyber-space - a reminder of just how far we've come.

That being said, in honor of the "Giants of Science" dedication to maintaining that retro-web vibe, I present to you a short list of some of the most outdated, obfuscated, ultra-retro websites I could find:



Filed under Website Basics