Viewing Thread:
"Can everyone write their best web design tips here, we can make a ultimate tips post!"

Ok this post will act like a massive book of knowledge instead theres no book and its not likely you will find any knowlege here.

But anyway post your best webdesign tips, coz everytime sum 1 visits a site they see something they dunno how to do and really want to know how.

This way we can help everyone! Get posting!

I didn't expect really to know enough to contribute anything significant to this topic. But i've seen something recently which people can learn from:

www.kickz.com

this used to be a fairly simple looking site with a slightly suspect looking color scheme, at first difficult to see where to click to change languages, and the images of the items they sold took ages to download. And it used frames.

Was in need of a bit of a re-design to be honest. But just take a look at their 'minimum system requirements' on that first page.
And inside it's not great either. Very good technical creation, but abysmally thought out for their users.



Oh, and use width and height attributes in images. It helps the browser compile the rest of the page before all the images are downloaded.



Oh, another one. If you have a background image, consider using a bgcolor in the body tag too. That way you'll get the bgcolor up very quickly, before the user's computer downloads the background image and puts it over the top. Just shows the user that something is there and happening quicker than letting the blank screen hang around.

funkygamer wrote:
> Insane Bartender, you are obviously clued up, but why have I not seen
> you post before???

I'm usually found annoying Goatboy in the FOG chat forum. I don't post here that often. If you want my background, i tought myself HTML through boredom at work, and when my workmates realised i'd done that, they shoved me on an internal web development project. I had to learn sharpish - CSS, JavaScript, Perl etc. Personally, having seen and done everything from simple static websites, to flash empowered "experiences" I have to say that the simpler you can keep your website, the better it is, and the more user retention you will experience.

Which is to say, complicated and extensively coded websites are more prone to bugs, browser incompatibility, and slow download times. Keep it simple, keep it clean, keep it safe.

One of the books i spoke of earlier points out one of the fundamental truths about internet users: the incredible lack of patience. A website generally has literally seconds to display what most users are after, and if it doesn't deliver, the user moves onto the next site on his/her list.

Speed is of essence on the double u double u double u.

Fogmaster wrote:
Whts XML about? saw you write something about it a while ago, i've
> never found any information saying whats it's actually used for.


Take a ;ook at:
http://www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-points

Insane Bartender wrote:
> If you want some sensible views on how to put together content of your
> webby in a user friendly, and sensible manner, I can recommend some
> excellent reading material....

Erk, I need to spend more time in here.

Insane Bartender, you are obviously clued up, but why have I not seen you post before???

> Fogmaster Wrote:
> anyway, minamilist sites are good, but I didn't see many low quality
> images on your site Tyla.

Tyla Wrote:
> I assume you are refering to my own personal site? If you pay
> attention, the URL isn't the final one, it's still being worked on and
> final optimisation will happen prior to final launch.

I wasn't talking about your site, your sites still got quite a lot of info on it :D nice pets btw but they were talking about little = good earlier.

yeah most people I know still surf with less than 1024... resolutions, I used to think it was too big, don't know whats happened but anything less seems really horrible :(

thanks for the information on XML :)

Fogmaster wrote:
I didn't know > look nicer, and gives me the impression that the page loads faster due
> to less HTML, although I still use
It's being depricated... wich menas, phased out with the next version of HTML. it will still be supported for a long time, but as things progress, old way arre killed off. CSS does speed up DL time too and much quicker, and the biggest advantage is the ease of being able to re-design your content by jyst changing the CSS file!


> Whts XML about? saw you write something about it a while ago, i've
> never found any information saying whats it's actually used for.

XML - eXtensible Markup Language... have a look at www.xml.org for all the info. basically a way of stroing data with the ability to repurpose it for ANY platform with the aid of xSLT... It's complicated, but one day I may write an entry on it all.


> anyway, minamilist sites are good, but I didn't see many low quality
> images on your site Tyla.

I assume you are refering to my own personal site? If you pay attention, the URL isn't the final one, it's still being worked on and final optimisation will happen prior to final launch.

> fair enough though, most people I know surf with 800x600 resolutions,
> I pity them but they like it, so be it, actually gives me a better
> perspective of my sites, pretty sure most people don't view at
> anything less than 16Bit, which kinda allows for most websites these
> days.

Actually you'll be surprised how many people still use 256 colours as well as 800x600. It's still a long way off before 1026 becomes the norm.

If you want some sensible views on how to put together content of your webby in a user friendly, and sensible manner, I can recommend some excellent reading material....

Futurize Your Enterprise
-David Siegel

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ ASIN/0471357634/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/ 202-0100010-1715842

(remove spaces in the link)

An absolutely steaming book. Takes you through how all the start-ups got it right, and got it wrong. Great details on user experience, and even customising for different user types. A highly recommended book.


Information Architecture on the world wide web
-Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville (O'Reilly)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565922824/ qid=1020327692/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_19_1/202-0100010-1715842

(remove spaces in the link)

A very good book, but more a reference manual, unlike Siegels book above. Very informative on how to lay out your site as a whole (not page design, but information layout, directory structures etc), for ease of use for both the site designer, and the users. Very useful.

Hope these help people get started, and my only tip when it comes to coding is:
Learn CSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IB

Fair enough, but Flash wasn't created just for navigation and banners, short movies are it's key point I think, Flash intros are great, if they're huge files that takes ages to download, the people that made it are fools, but thing is, if you don't want to watch it, thats fair enough, but weirdos like me..do.
Frames can be bookmarked, so i've obviously misunderstood what you've been saying, e.g:http://www.clanuk2.co.uk :D (again) that bookmarks, what else would you need.

I didn't know was going.. ho ho ho, I like CSS it makes pages look nicer, and gives me the impression that the page loads faster due to less HTML, although I still use i'm still a newbie, heh.

Whts XML about? saw you write something about it a while ago, i've never found any information saying whats it's actually used for.

anyway, minamilist sites are good, but I didn't see many low quality images on your site Tyla.
Also most people unless they don't surf the net every year or so don't have such luxuries as Flash plugin, ( I think about 98% of the population of surfers have the Flash Plugin)

fair enough though, most people I know surf with 800x600 resolutions, I pity them but they like it, so be it, actually gives me a better perspective of my sites, pretty sure most people don't view at anything less than 16Bit, which kinda allows for most websites these days.

but yeah, I agree with what you say.