Reflection Week 9

During this week, Miss Amreet taught us on the important styles for informative websites. If you have an existing site, or plan to develop one in the near future, it's important to understand the characteristics that can make or break the effectiveness of your online investment. An unattractive or poorly built site will do more to hurt your business than to help it.

Simplicity: The best way to keep visitors glued to your site is through valuable content, good organization and attractive design. Keep your site simple and well organized.

Fast-loading pages: A page should load in 20 seconds or less via dial-up; at more than that, you'll lose more than half of your potential visitors.

Minimal scroll: This is particularly important on the first page. Create links from the main page to read more about a particular topic. Even the Search Engines will reward you for this behavior.

Consistent layout: Site layout is extremely important for usability. Use a consistent layout and repeat certain elements throughout the site.

Prominent, logical navigation: Place your menu items at the top of your site, or above the fold on either side. Limit your menu items to 10 or fewer. Remember, your visitors are in         a hurry -- don't make them hunt for information.

Descriptive link text: Usability testing     shows that long link text makes it much easier for visitors to find their way around a site. Long, descriptive link text is favored              by Search Engines, too. Back links are important to give users a sense     of direction and to keep them from feeling lost. Use a site map, and breadcrumbs, if necessary.

Cross-platform/browser compatibility: Different browsers often have different rules for displaying content. At a minimum, you should test your site in the latest versions of Internet Explorer (currently, versions 8 and 9), as well as Firefox and Safari.