Transcript Effective Web Site Design

Effective Web Site Design
Written by Jimmy Ellis
Thesis
• Designing Web sites to be attractive to your
target audience, easy to use, and easy to
look at will benefit your company by
retaining customer base and lowering
marketing expenses.
Hypothesis
• It is my contention to inform the audience
of the necessary design steps and
considerations to create an effective Web
site to promote a product, service, or
person.
Methodology
• Interviewed Jesse Wells on November 4, 2003 to
ascertain the four most important design
elements he considers when doing a Web site for
the college.
• Researched the Internet for theories on color,
typography, layout and navigation.
• Went through the steps of changing a default
Web site created through Angelfire.com to an
effective Web site to promote a service.
Preview
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Parts of a Web site
A basic Web site
Layout basics
Target your audience
Navigation (differentiate your links)
Use color to promote
Refinement to a finished project
Parts of a Web site
• Title: the name of the page/document
• Body: the main portion of the document
• Navigation: series of links that make it
capable to explore the contents of a Web
site
a basic Web site
• A list of links to
individual pages
• Body text
• Default scrollbar
colors
• Left align
Contrast
• Choose colors for the
text and links that will
show up on the
background you
choose.
• Make sure they don’t
interfere with
colorblind people’s
perception of your
site.
Develop White Space
• White space is the
space between text and
other elements on a
page.
• White space is used to
emphasize what’s
there or what’s not.
Create margins
• Margins are used to
make text more
visually appealing and
easier to read.
• Text without margins
stresses the eyes.
Language
• Make sure that the
language you use is
going to be
understandable to your
target audience.
• Try to avoid jargon. If
unavoidable you may
want to include a
section with
definitions.
Typography
• While it’s okay to
identify different
sections of text with a
different color or a
different font, effective
Web sites will use one
of the most common
fonts that computers
come loaded with.
Putting it together
• A clean looking, easy to read, easy to navigate,
easy on the eyes Web site with high contrast, easy
to understand language, and easily identifiable
parts.
Choosing Colors
• Use the RGB (red,green,blue) color wheel or the 6x6x6
cubes to choose complimentary, split complimentary, triad
and analogous color schemes.
• ColorSchemer.com also has a great software program that
identifies each of those color schemes based on one color
you choose.
Finished Projects
Works Cited
“Effective Typography in Web Design.” 1999. Fortress Web Design and
Hosting. 30 Nov. 2003
<http://www.fortressdesign.com/typography.html>
http://www.tcd.ie/Webdesign/layout.php
http://www.tcd.ie/Webdesign/colour.php
http://www.tcd.ie/Webdesign/frames.php
http://www.tcd.ie/Webdesign/lang.php
http://www.arnb.com/webdesign/chap7/chap7.htm
http://www.arnb.com/webdesign/chap7/cwheel/cwheel.htm
http://www.arnb.com/webdesign/chap7/cwheel/cube.htm
Works Cited
http://www.yorvic.york.ac.uk/~mgwt/KKwebcourse/colourscience/colo
urchoosing.html
http://www.yorvic.york.ac.uk/~mgwt/KKwebcourse/colourscience/colo
ursignificance.html
http://www.yorvic.york.ac.uk/~mgwt/KKwebcourse/colourscience/colo
ursignificance.html
http://www.yorvic.york.ac.uk/~mgwt/KKwebcourse/colourscience/colo
urmodels.html
http://www.colorschemer.com/
http://www.colorschemer.com/tutorial.html
http://www.colorschemer.com/help1.html