Do provide meaningful content. You can't be everything to everyone, so tailor your information to your intended audience and don't publish irrelevant content; the www is already flooded with it.
Don't publish blank pages that are "under construction". Either you have something to broadcast or not.
Do clearly indicate the date of publication of the text if it is of a time sensitive nature.
A page should scroll vertically not horizontally. Don't hide information behind the margins and force the reader to have to continually adjust the horizontal viewing area.
Don't add elements that blink or move unless you want your audience to fall into an alpha state and begin napping. If they want moving images they'll head back to their couch and remote. The only thing accomplished by having elements on your
website jumping around is to demonstrate that your website is a pathetic alternative to TV.
Don't add sound unless you are demonstrating a sound for the purpose of clarifying a point, or you are a musician expressing your talent. Leave sound for the sites that are designed around the theme of delivering aural information. This goes
for "video" as well. Keep audio-video files small (1 minute max).
If you have lots of text to present...do break it up with short paragraphs and occasional images. Indent your paragraphs, or structure your text columns like a newspaper so that text can be read quickly with little eye movement. Great long
paragraphs sprawling from the extreme left margin to the right will exhaust your reader.
Apart from headings and other elements that require a larger font size for emphasis, do set the text size at 10-12pt. Check the results in a browser with its text size control set to the middle value so that your reader can adjust their
browser either up or down to taste.
Do choose a readable font (this is Verdana) for the basic text and employ the hundreds of other fonts sparingly for emphasis only. People whose native language is not English, or who have vision or dyslexic proclivity don't appreciate having
to interpret complicated or busy fonts.
When using colours for emphasizing headings or other text elements, avoid using the colour that is associated with your hyperlinks. In other words if your hyperlinks are blue, don't use the same colour blue for text emphasis. On this site all
the hyperlinks are red.
Text hyperlinks should always be underlined or coded by a distinct colour so that the reader can tell the difference from a non-hyperlinked word. This saves them from having to move their cursor over words that may or may not be hyperlinked.
Don't make your readers play hide and seek.
All pages in your website should have a clear navigable consistently easy to find path to the primary links in your navigation structure. Don't create orphaned pages that can only get back to their home by using the browser's back button.
Graphic (image) hyperlinks should have the "alt-text" field filled in with a descriptor because if the image does not load... the alt-text will inform the reader that a hyperlink is present and what the target is.
Images provide an opportunity to enhance and set apart your website and they can be used to provide the reader with memory cues concerning where a particular text message is located. Except for a repeating header, footer or navigation bar
that is consistently present on each page and may have an image associated with it... do use different images to break up the text in a meaningful way so that some component of the image relates to the text.
It takes time for a browser to load an image depending on the viewer's machine connection to the internet. We are a long way from everyone having a high speed connection so balance out the use of images with the amount of text. If an image
takes 30 seconds to load using a 56Kb dial-up connection, do make sure there is at least 30 seconds worth of text to read.
Do resolve your images in an editor to 72dpi (low range dots per inch), crop out unnecessary elements, reduce images down to 100-200 pixels wide as a thumbnail and allow your viewer the choice of clicking on them for a larger display (320-480
pixels wide for Portrait aspect and 480-640 pixels wide for Landscape aspect) if they want to. Read this brief on how to take better digital photos.
Don't pay a lot of money for a website unless you are getting something that very few people can provide, and even then be aware that paying the highest bidder does not guarantee the best results. Websites do not have to be complicated or
expensive to be effective. It's being connected to the network (the www) that has primary value, and after that, design simplicity should rule.
Do combine your website with your other marketing efforts; see the Useful Tools and Newsletter pages.
If you are having trouble getting started with your website do read my essay "Are You Blocked?" and if you want me to begin working for you, read my "How to Begin and Get the Best Out of My Service".
Above all, don't make your reader work for the information.
