In this section you'll find several web design tips that will help you in creating an effective web site and providing a pleasant experience to visitors.

The display of a website depends on several factors such as browser type, the client’s platform, client’s screen resolution etc. You as a web designer have no control over these factors.

The Internet is very different from the printed page or the television in that it is highly interactive and dynamic and brings together several multimedia features, such as pictures, sound, video and animation. It is therefore extremely important to understand the demographics of visitors to your web site and shape the site accordingly.

Website vs Print and Television

Media A book, is a typical example of print media. It follows a linear structure from the first page to the last. Though readers can skip sections and go back and forth, the navigation aspect of the book is simple.

The television on the other hand, does not provide the option for the viewer to skip between sections. A television program plays from the beginning to the end. Viewers have no control over the sequence of the program being shown on the screen.

Though a website can easily merge the visual aspects of both the book and the television, it is in navigational aspects that they differ primarily from print and tv media.

Navigation on a website is created using hyperlinks allowing your visitors to skip between pages and determine the information to be displayed. Therefore, navigation is without doubts the most important aspect of a web site.

Web Design Navigation Tip

The navigation of a web site plays a very important role in making the site user friendly. As a rule of thumb, a website should follow the "three click rule". This means that a visitor should be able to access any page on the site using three or less mouse clicks.

Web Design Display Tip

The display of the web page is governed mainly by the browser and client-side settings. Testing the web page on all browsers, colour depths and screen sizes would be very tedious. It is better to guess the kind of visitors you expect, keep an account of their settings and browsers and design accordingly.

For example, We can safely assume that the visitors to www.eWebz.co.uk would be mainly people interested in website design or SEO. They would be using the latest browsers, their monitors would be set to a high colour or true colour and the monitor screen size would be 1024 X 768 pixels or more.