| How fast your page loads is a very important | | | | should be easy to navigate to both the home page |
| concern with web design. Most people won't wait | | | | and to the contact information for the site from |
| very long (more than about three or four seconds) | | | | every page. Don't make visitors have to backtrack |
| for a page to load. In order to avoid having pages | | | | to get to what they want. |
| that will take a long time to load, try to limit the | | | | In addition to ensuring that the site is easily navigable, |
| number of graphic or audio elements on your pages, | | | | you will want to ensure that the content itself is |
| or make them smaller and faster-loading. A judicious | | | | readable. After all, what's the point of creating a site |
| use of these elements will not only result in | | | | on which the visitor can't read the words? It's difficult |
| faster-loading pages, but will also show your users | | | | to get a message across that way! Some fonts-- |
| that you are not favoring style over substance. | | | | although very well-suited for print materials--don't |
| One of the major considerations in building a website | | | | translate well onscreen. For the most readable text, |
| is navigation, or how easily a user can get around | | | | stick to one of these fonts: Arial, Verdana, and |
| your site. Being able to easily and efficiently find the | | | | Times New Roman. And, as the saying goes, "Size |
| information they need is critical to keeping your users | | | | matters." Don't make the text so tiny that visitors |
| interested in your site. It should be very clear how a | | | | will be wiping nose prints off of their computer |
| user can navigate from page to page in your site. | | | | screens. On the flipside, don't make it so large that |
| Having a menu bar along the side of each page, on | | | | users are constantly scrolling to read the next word. |
| which is indicated the names of each of the pages, | | | | The text should fit nicely on the page so that |
| on the site is very useful. That way, users can easily | | | | scrolling is only occasionally necessary. 12pt font is |
| click from page to page without having to use their | | | | fairly standard, but 11 or 13 work nicely, too - |
| browser's "back" and "forward" buttons. Also, it | | | | especially in Arial. |