Web Page Layout And Navigation Tips
Web design is all about providing maximum usability and readability to visitors. To create a successful website you need to consider the layout of each page carefully. Users are not likely to stick around on your website if they find it difficult to read and navigate. One of the major factors to consider is minimizing noise on our web pages. Cluttering the page with too many banners, graphics, animations, and text in different colors doesn't result in a productive web page at all. It is important to break up content with appropriate headings and subheadings. This increases your site's readability factor. Long drawn out content with no subheadings and pointers can become monotonous to read.
It is important to break up areas on a web page with background color bars. This is more appealing to the eye and visitors to your site won't have to work hard to read the content. Frequently review your layout and remove anything that you feel may impact the user's ability to view your web pages comfortably. Don't keep shouting out to users with long sentences in capital letters. Get your MESSAGE across by CAPITALIZING only a FEW WORDS. This previous sentence is the perfect example. In addition, keep away from animated graphic buttons and flashing text. Such movement can be annoying to the eyes and distract a visitor completely. Also remember to break up information into smaller chunks, which makes it for the mind to handle as compared to larger ones. While numbers can be broken up into 12-234-432, text must also include small sentences and paragraphs and bulleted lists.
While designing, make sure every page of your website can be viewed at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. This is due to the fact that many people set their screen to a high resolution of 1280 x 1024. Many surfers use the search function in their browser, which takes up around 20% of space on the left side and reduces the main space to a little less than 1000 pixels. Web pages with fixed width tables take up more space, forcing uses to scroll horizontally.
Site navigation is an important aspect of web design. Your content or products are of no use unless users can find them easily on your website. Components for navigation need to be present on every web page. Great attention must be paid to the page title. Each page must have a title except for the home page. It should match with the name of the link leading to it. The page title should be prominent at the top of the page in a large font. The logo and site name must be present on every web page. The top left side or center is the ideal place since many web users are of the habit of clicking on the logo to go back to the home page. Keep local navigation text and graphic links on the left side while the primary navigation links must be on the top left or center of every web page. A link to the home page is the most important that must be present every page on your website. Users are bound to use this link if they get lost after some time.