- The navigational aspect – Being able to navigate the given set of links on the site plays a key role in shaping the stickiness factor of the site that is the time visitor stays and travels around the site. Thus, he would most likely go through the content of a page and then look around to locate another page of his interest.
- Keeping the layout design clean – In order to enhance a site’s looks and appearance, a spick and span layout that utilizes a lot of white space should be opted for. The designer must try and keep the attention on the content and possibly use the fonts which will be accessible on each and every computer to avoid the site appearing bungled.
- Striking an optimal loading time – In order to make sure that the loading time is short, a designer must try and avoid things like flash, graphics and scripts as much as possible since all of them take long time to load on a page. It is also better to ensure that the site doesn’t include any redundant tags or idle and useless scripts.
- Compatibility with the major browsers – The designer must make sure that the site operates properly on at least each of the major browsers used today. The best way to do this is to verify the site for Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla Firefox 1+, Opera 7+, Safari 3+ and Netscape Navigator 6+ which more or less represent about 95% of the total web browsers in the world.
- Compatibility for Screen Resolutions: A site that is comprehensible and user friendly must always support its visitors to hang about and go through all the content on the site. For the web sites which have continuous extended pages of content it becomes extremely crucial since the total scrolling required gets condensed in the process. Now if the web site fails to appear attractive for any one resolution it is most likely that the user will exit the browser window with a feeling that the particular page is not meant for his viewing. Thus, crafting stretch layouts which will fit any kind of screen resolution makes sure that the web master will be aware that all the visitors can see a visually attractive and proficient site.
- Use of pure CSS: The fact is as clear as any writing on the wall that the computer world is gradually but surely shifting away from table based sites to pure CSS sites for a variety of factors. CSS sites offer an ease of access, reusability and significantly trim down the file size along with rendering a greater control on the overall appearance of the website.
Published December 20, 2009 | 