Elements of Good Website Design

It is easy to make a bad website, but it’s just as easy to make a clean, professional-looking Website by following the guidelines below.

Text

• Background does not interrupt the text
• Text is big enough to read, but not too big
• The hierarchy of information is perfectly clear
• Columns of text are narrower than those in a book to make reading on the easier.

Navigation

• Navigation buttons and bars are easy to understand and use
• Navigation is consistent throughout website
• A large site has an index or site map

Links

• Link colors coordinate with page colors
• Links are underlined so they are instantly clear to the visitor

Graphics

• Buttons are not excessively big
• Every graphic has an alt label
• Every graphic link has a matching text link
• Graphics and backgrounds use browser-safe colors
• Animated graphics turn off by themselves

General Design

• Pages load quickly
• First page and home page fit into 800 x 600 pixel space
• All of the other pages have immediate visual impact within 800 x 600 pixels
• Good use of elements (photos and subheads) to break up large areas of text
• Every web page in the site looks like it belongs to the same site; there is consistency throughout pages