Planning Do's & Don'ts

Design Considerations - Three important reasons for being conscious of design issues:

• To allow for the most effective communication possible.
• To guide readers' eyes through the information.
• To make the web site distinctive and eye-catching.

Content:

• Write clearly and be brief.
• Organize your content for quick scanning. Use headings, lists, link menus.
• Each web page needs to stand on it's own. Use descriptive titles, navigation links to other pages within the site.

Layout:

• Don't use the heading size fonts for body text. It gets confusing.
• Group related information visually on the page.
• Use a consistent layout from page to page.

Hyperlinks:

• Using the word "here" as a hyperlink is considered bad form.
• Link only to relevant information. Readers will get lost clicking and never "get" the content.

Images:

• Don't overuse images. Lots of images means slow downloading.
• Use small images. Try to keep them smaller tan 30K.
• Always use a photo editor like Photoshop to crop and compress. Use the "Save as Web" as much as possible.
• Use highly contrasting colors between background and the text.

Miscellaneous:

• Always link back to the home page.
• Don't split a topic across several pages.
• Sign your pages with information about how to contact the webmaster, revision date, the URL, and copyright information. In this class all contact information will be to the teacher or school.
• No personal home, e-mail, or last names will be allowed.