Do comment on your links
Add value to your links by annotating them.
You visited the linked site otherwise you wouldn't publish the link in
the first place. Right? Share your knowledge and add a description.
Do update your pages
Be sure to check your pages on a regular base and to update them
if necessary.
Do show date of update
You update your pages on a regular basis. Don't you?
Make clear to your visitors how recent or (out-)dated your
information is. Provide the date of the last update. And don't forget
to change the date if you change a page...
Do ask for feedback
You can learn from your visitors.
Ask for their feedback and give them an e-mail address to reach
you.
Don't show any page under construction
Don't publish a page that's under construction.
People will hate you if you do.
If the page isn't finished, it's not ready to be published.
In a sense most pages are always under construction because they
are updated (more or less) frequently.
100 Do's and Don'ts in Web Design SpiderPro
Do use explicit addressing
Navigation should be clear. Links like Back, Next, Previous, or
clickable images of arrows, do point in an unclear direction.
What is 'Back'. The page your visitor came from? The preceding
page in your own website?
Make navigation clear by supplying links like Chapter 12. The
history of beekeeping.
Do check your links
OK, it's a cliché. But anyone who surfs the web will agree. Check
your links frequently.
Don't just check them to avoid 404 errors. You might find that an
external link still works but that the content behind it has changed.
Don't change links
Figure out a good addressing scheme and stick to it.
People will create links to your site. Be sure not to break these
links.
Do always supply textual links
Supply textual links. Using only clickable images or image maps
makes your site unusable for anybody that disables images.
Do supply a link to home
In the rare case people get lost in your site, a link to home comes
in handy.
Supply such a link on each page.
Do use navigational aids at the top and the
bottom
Supply navigational aids at the top and the bottom of your page. If
you do, people probably won't need to scroll to navigate.
Do use a table of contents
Do use a table of contents, preferably as a menu. Without it your
visitors will get lost.
Do create a “what's new” page
Returning visitors are interested in the latest additions on your site.
Create a What's new page to supply that info.
Do use short routes
Supply short routes to information. Avoid too many menus and
submenus, instead use larger menus with more items.
People will appreciate it getting to the desired info quickly.
Do keep menu items related
Menu items should be related, don't mix them randomly.
Try to share comparable items in one menu. You can use a larger
menu for more itemgroups if you separate these groups in a clear
way.
Don't link to irrelevant pages
Use only hyperlinks within the context of your page. People will feel
lost if you try to use too many links.
Don't repeat links too often
You shouldn't repeat links in the text. I.e. you have a page about
beekeeping and want to link it to to a page that describes different
kinds of honey. Then don't link every occurrence of the word
honey.
The only exception are links in a menu. You can repeat menulinks,
i.e. on the top and on the bottom of your page.
Don't use ambivalent navigation
Navigation must be clear. Unless you run some kind of
experimental site be sure to avoid experimental buttons that make
visitors have to guess what they mean.
Don't create dead end pages
A dead end page is a page that is linked to by other pages but
itself has no links.
A visitor gets trapped in a dead end page and needs his
backbutton to get away.
Don't use dead end pages.
Don't make prisoners
You can imprison your visitors. I.e. by redirecting them to a page
without taskbars and icons.
But your prisoner will escape eventually and never return.
Don't frame other sites
You can load pages from other sites within a frame of your own
site.
Don't!
It might ruin the look and feel of the framed site. And it gives the
wrong idea that the framed site is a part of your own site.
Load all pages in a full page.
Design
Do use a consistent look and feel
Your site should stand out as a whole. Use the same look and feel
for all the pages at your site. This way your visitors have a sense of
recognition when they visit various pages. Using stylesheets makes
it much easier to maintain the look and feel of numerous pages.
Do use recurring visual elements
Repeat visual elements (images, colors, fonts etc.) on several
pages. This will add to a consistent look and feel.
Don't use dark backgrounds
Dark backgrounds tend to make text less readable. So avoid dark
colors or dark backgroundimages. If you do need them, use a
nonserif font for the text (like Arial, Universe, Helvetica) and be
sure to not to use a small fontsize.
Don't cram your pages
A page with text pushed aside against the border of a table - or an
image - looks awful. Don't cram your pages, use colspan and
borderspan for tables and vspan and hspan for applets and
images.
Don't push your table out of the screen
Tables are very flexible. They're able to get almost anything more
or less visible on a screen.
But by putting large elements in a table cell you might force the
cells to become too large. Thus making horizontal scrolling
necessary.
So limit the number and size of pictures, long words (e.g. long
links), predefined text etc.
Don't overuse frames
Use only a limited number of frames. Always check if the screen
doesn't get crammed if a low resolution screen is used.
Do vertical align the content of table cells
You do you use table cells to get your info on the right position?
Then be sure to align the content vertically.
Don't mix horizontal aligning
Mixing centered text and text that's left aligned makes a mess of
your page.
If you want to center text do it consistently.
Exceptions are centering text of headers or centered text placed in
a border.
100 Do's and Don'ts in Web Design SpiderPro
Do use few colors in your GIF's
Minimize the number of colors in your GIF images.
GIF's can be stored with a maximum of 256 colors. Minimizing the
number of colors to 16, 8 or even 2 dramatically reduces the size of
the GIF-file and therefore improves performance.
Choose as few colors as possible without ruining the image. You
might test both reducing colors with error correction or by selecting
the nearest color.
Do use high compression in JPEG
Improve the performance of your site by reducing the size of your
JPEG-images.
JPEG can be saved with different compression-percentages. A
high compression results in a smaller file size but also in a less
perfect image. Test several compressions for each image you want
to use. For different images the acceptable compressions will
differ.
Do reserve space for images
Generally text arrives more quickly than an image. By reserving
space for an image the browser is able to render the text. A visitor
can start reading right away. Reserving space is done by defining
the attributes vsize and hsize in the tag
Do provide thumbnails for large images
In some cases you do need large pictures that take a while to load.
I.e. if you're running a website on modern art.
In such a case do provide small copies of the original images
(thumbnails) that link to the original ones.
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