Many people hear the term “web design” and get scared. You have to be an artist with years of good programming skill to make your own web site and have it come out nicely, don’t you? Well, this is not the case! In fact, making a good web site is not that hard at all once you know what to do.
The first step to creating a good web page is to decide what you want on it. People will be visiting your site for what is written there, not how pretty it looks you know. Go ahead and make a list of the main sections you want people to visit. “Home”, “About me” and “links” are usually good starts.
Once you know what you want on your web site, it is time to start organizing! People like it when it’s easy to tell what is where but do not like a flood of links to click. If several similar things go together, it usually is OK to put them on the same page. For example, “About me” could also tell your hobbies and favorite music instead of having separate pages for your music, your hobbies and you.
Once you have all your information narrowed down to a few nice pages, it’s time to design your layout. The three keys are visibility, ease of use, and compatibility. If you have those three things down, your site will be great.
Visibility means that your page is easy to read. Choose two contrasting complimentary colors for your pages. It is important to make sure the colors are very different in shades to make it easy to read. Usually light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background works the best. Also avoid using background images as it makes reading difficult.
Ease of use means that it is easy for people visiting your page to find what they want. All the main pages you came up with earlier should be clearly linked on an easy to read menu that will be in the same place on every one of your pages. If you have any sub pages, a site map linked in the footer of your web page is also a great idea.
The most important of the three concerns is compatibility. If they can not load your web page, they will not be able to enjoy it! Do not use things like flash or silverlight as they do not work on all browser or all operating systems and can crash slower computers. Also, check your web site across several browsers to make sure the code works well. Using W3C compliant code will generally help things out a lot.
As you can see, web design is not as scary as it sounds. With a little planning and care taken towards visibility, ease of use, and compatibility your web site will be just fine. Do not be afraid to try to go out there and make your site yourself, there is plenty of help out there if you get “stuck”. Have fun with your web page, the world is waiting to hear from you!
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