10 points to be aware of website design

Design Web site is the face of the public face, this article will introduce 10 kinds of commercial web site design common failures, from the past cases and lessons learned to learn from the experience can help you avoid the same mistakes, and you can design your site to be effective at the same time for your business add value.

In the initial design of the site, you have a variety of options, the opportunity seems to be endless, can do things far beyond the imagination. Although the potential for building a Web site is limitless, there are a number of common mistakes that can lead to the failure of web design, making it impossible for you to achieve the goal of adding additional value to your business.

For the corporate web site, I've listed 10 common design errors that are appropriate for personal sites, amateurs, and nonprofit websites, but try to avoid these common, very bad mistakes.

　　1. About Us

Each site should provide very clear and intuitive information, including a brief, exaggerated description, or a prominent and obvious link to the "About Us" page on the home page, and describe your site and the value it provides.

Some users may not find this site helpful to them, explaining it is also important to provide enough information to explain that the user will not be confused about the purpose of the site. It is better to provide visitors with a description of why he or she will not be interested in the site, so that they can send away visitors who are not interested, rather than trying to cheat them until they have spent a lot of time on their own to know that the site does not have the content they need. After all, a site that directly shows its own function can get a good reputation and recognition even more than a site that is so mysterious and difficult to use.

　　Text description of the 2.ALT and title attributes

For Web sites that support these properties, make sure that you use the ALT and title attributes on each XHTML label. If a user uses a browser that does not support pictures of the site, this information is critical to accessibility and provides information beyond the main content. The most common function is to provide accessibility to people with disabilities, such as blind users who use screen readers to access the site. However, do not write too many words in the ALT or Title attribute, so you should make the text concise and clear. Do not let your users drown in large segments of fuzzy information, or useless pop-up information, should make the site the most accessible state, because the ALT and title tag's basic role is to promote accessibility.

　　3. Archiving management of URLs

Placing outdated pages on your site in an archive is a common change in Web site updates, but it can be difficult for search engines, such as a link to a page in your site that is not valid. Therefore, at the beginning of building a Web site, it is important to ensure that URLs that are transferred to the archive part are not changed. Word of mouth is on the Internet to create the cornerstone of popularity and prestige, if your site on the page links will change in a few days, then I am afraid it is difficult to win a good reputation.

　4. Mark the date on the content

Often, you need to update your site regularly to win repeat customers, and people will only browse the site when new content appears. Mark the date on the content so that visitors can know what is new and in what order. Even if, in some rare cases, the content of the site may not need to be updated frequently, a change of information should be reflected even if a page has been edited.

Adding a timestamp to all the information on your site can help your visitors confirm what information is out of date, even if you only add the word "last update" at the bottom of each page. And it's not just a convenience for visitors to the site, it is also helpful to you: If readers find that what you say and what they see elsewhere is due to information updates, they will increase your site's reputation and become a repeat customer, and will visit your site frequently to get more information.

　　5. Content Density

Putting too much information in one place will scare the visitors away, although common sense tells us to provide as much information as possible, but extremes meet, and there may be side effects when there are many good things. If you provide too much information, the reader can easily get tired when reading, and then start skimming, and finally simply do not read.

Try to make sure that your initial information is closely related to the topic, and that it is brief and can be digested by the reader at the same time, providing links to in-depth information. Using a symbolic list is a great way to break information down into different parts and make it easier to understand so that visitors don't get scared away. The same principle applies to the list of links, where too many links are squeezed together and static, disorganized information is indistinguishable. Make the list of links shorter so that readers can spend little effort to find the information they need. If you can help them find the information they need, it will add additional value to your site, as well as make sure that it is easy to digest.

　　6. Decorative Pictures

In addition to some flags and pictures showing the brand, you should use as little decorative pictures as possible. Use pictures to help you if you are helpful to your readers, and use these pictures if the information is what you want to provide. Do not fill the site with pictures to decorate, which will scare the visitors away. Therefore, use only valid pictures, not decorative pictures, even if you use decorative pictures not too much. Loading pictures is often slow, which slows down the time when readers are looking for text, and many browsers or screen readers do not see the picture, and on the other hand, the text is generic.

　　7. Indirect link/Transit link/redirect link

Don't block other sites from linking directly to your site's content, and many large content providers violate this rule, such as news sites redirecting links to other sites, so visitors tend to stay on your home page. Using this clumsy approach seems to suggest that forcing visitors into the home page will make them interested in other things, but in reality, the results will only disappoint people. If you're in trouble looking for an article, your customer will give up looking for it in your site and go somewhere else. Worse still, links from other sites can significantly increase your rankings in search engines, and if you let these redirected links fail, you are objecting to being linked to your site, so never reject a link to your site.

　　8. Latest Content

In the fourth question, I mentioned the date of the content of the site, so as to show changes in content, any regularly updated site should make these changes easy to be understood by visitors, the content of the recent update can not be the same as three years ago, so that can not reflect the slightest change.

The new content should be kept fresh enough so that your readers can get the value from the information. If your site is updated very quickly (such as Slashdot), it helps to categorize the information, such as categorizing the news so that readers can easily find the latest content in the topic they are interested in. Effective search capabilities and excellent web site management Help readers find the information they have seen before and help them achieve these functions as much as they can.