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Secrets of a Good Site DesignBe Your Own Site Designer |
By Catalin Bocanu, Web News Editor
14th of September 2007, 17:24 GMT
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A good site design is defined by various aspects. The first stage of a new site building is planning the site structure. For example, if your website will have an educational destination such as web development and programming tutorials, you should organize the logical structure of the information first, then the articles’ order and so on. Based on a preliminary scheme regarding the quantity of information that will be published, you will decide if your site will have only static HTML pages, as it happens in case of a presentation of a single service or product.
But if there’s a large amount of information and your site content will change quite often, then you will need dynamic webpages, created by server side scripts. If you choose to create a website formed only by HTML pages, the use of templates will increase the chance of having a good site design. There are many reasons for you to use templates. Even if you are an experienced designer or only a beginner, the templates usage will save you from a lot of work, because you can find for free the type of template that will closely match your preliminary site structure. If you are used to image editing
techniques and HTML, you can customize the template to fit exactly the planned website structure.
Commonly, there are two types of templates: some made with image files and others with CSS (cascading style sheets). The CSS techniques are widely used and have many advantages, especially the fact that they reduce the file size of the template by substituting the use of images. In case you want to make your own templates, it is recommended to use CSS and avoid flash, gif animations or image backgrounds. You should always think about the fact that your website could be used by various people having different web browsers and the use of CSS templates will guarantee you that most modern browsers will display your website properly.
The monitor resolution has a great influence over the site view. You could use a liquid template or you can design the template on an 800x600 monitor resolution, due to the fact it is used by most of your visitors. The template layout may also have a great impact over your visitors, so you must design it with care and have in mind the maintenance of an easy web site navigation and an optimal view of site content. In the design of the navigation system, the most important aspect is that the visitor should reach a certain page with a minimal number of mouse clicks.
If your website will have a database, you should prepare the database structure first and then you should create a database interface with a server side application that will allow you to add, edit, delete, search and display database records, actually representing the content of your website. Then you must try to integrate the database frontend with a well-defined CSS template. This will give your website a professional look and will combine design and content in a logical way, making it accessible to your visitors.
For the users that have limited web design knowledge, I recommend choosing ready-made solutions for their websites, by selecting one of the many free CMS (content management systems). These have a professional look and are easy to customize from a web browser-based administration panel. Any CMS can be used as a forum, as an image gallery, address book, events calendar, ads lister, virtual store and so on. The secret of your website’s success will reside in a professional design and a valuable content for your visitors. But the content will always have an value enhanced by a good site design, because eventually, the foundation of your website is the quality of its design.
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