English through the Internet: Website Design
Points to consider when designing a web site:
Identify the Target Audience
Before beginning to build a Web site, try to identify the
audience you wish to reach, and have a clear set of objectives for the site.
Consider the level of computer expertise of your audience
“A well-designed system should be able to accommodate a
range of user skills and interests" (Lynch P and Horton S (1997 part 1:6).
Keep to the point
Write more concisely than you would for print.
The home page
The design of the home page (or front page) is the most
important since it is from here that most users will enter the site. The
designer should thus make sure that the home page creates a good first
impression.
Minimize the length of the home page:
Less than 10% of Web readers ever scroll beyond the top of
Web pages, with the result that they only use the links which are immediately
visible. Most designers recommend the home page should only be one screen
length, which does not require scrolling.
Make navigation easy:
The user should be able to find the desired information in
three clicks, a generally agreed measure of the efficiency of a site (Howlett V. 1996).
The positioning of the links
You should put the most important links at the top
of the screen. For Western reading conventions the top of the page (especially
the top left-hand corner) is the place the eye is most likely to go when
reading a new page. This is especially true on a Web page where as little as
the top four inches of a page are visible. "The best
measure of the efficiency of a page design is the number of options available
within the top four inches of your page" (Lynch P and Horton S).
Provide basic information
Lynch P and Horton S (1997 part
Provide information about the author (you)
One of the top ten mistakes of web page design is "Lack
of biographies" (Nielsen (1999b). The user needs to know something about
the author, and biographies and photographs make a site seem more personal.
Use of colour
Use colour conservatively: a
display with too many different colours can
overwhelm, and "mislead users into searching for relationships that do not
exist" (Schniederman (1992: 325-6). Limiting the
number of colours on the screen is thus recommended.
Bright and clashing colours are
considered to cause fatigue, but on the other hand pale font colours when used for text can be difficult to read. Barron
A, Topkins B and Tai D (1998) recommend a dark text
on a light background or vice-versa.
According to research, black text on a white background is
the easiest to read. Green on white, blue on white and black on yellow are all
OK. Black on purple is the most difficult to read.
Download time
This has a direct bearing on for example the inclusion of
graphics and frames: large graphics take a long time to download. According to
Nielsen (1999a), overly slow download times rate as a very severe mistake in
web page design. If users have to wait a long time to reach a site, they are
likely to press the stop button and search elsewhere.
Especially on the home page, the point of entry to the site,
download time is an important consideration.
HTML vs. Web page editors
The big advantage of using HTML is that you can create a Web
page to look exactly as you want it to: you have the freedom to tailor your
pages to meet your own requirements. You can, for example choose the exact colour you want. The price paid for this is the time that
it takes to create that site.
HTML editors on the other hand enable you to write a Web
document in a similar way to word processing. These are often referred to as
WYSIWYG editors (What You See Is What You Get). They produce the HTML tags
automatically, and are capable of creating features such as tables, which would
be time-consuming to do in HTML. Editors save time, and some have useful
features such as a spellchecker.
However, there are a number of disadvantages. Firstly, the
editors can produce errors which must then be corrected. Secondly, options are
more limited, for example the choice of colour
available. Some editors such as MS Word 97 Web Wizard simply give you a choice
of templates: the layout is pre-written, and the writer simply fills in the
content. There is little scope or motivation for originality.
Examples of Web page editors:
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Namo Web Editor: Korean/English version |
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Bibliography
and Sources
Howlett V
(1996) Visual Interface Design for Windows Wiley:
Lowe D (1999) Creating
Web Pages: Quick Reference
(1997) Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide
Yale University School of Medicine's Center for Advanced Instructional Media (C/AIM)
http://www.info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/(accessed
Moore M (June
1999) "The Knowledge: Essential advice and Information" Internet
Magazine
Nielsen J
(1997) Changes in Web Usability Since 1994 http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9712a.html
(accessed
Nielsen J (1999a) "Top
Ten Mistakes" Revisited Three Years Later http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990502.html
(accessed
Nielsen J (1999b) The
Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html
(accessed
Shneiderman B (1992) Designing the User Interface:
Strategies for effective human-computer interaction