Web Design

As someone who has seen thousands of Web sites, I am forever amazed at the variety of sites online, and the manner in which they are constructed.

I make no claims to site design genius, but I am not sure genius is required to put together an attractive and useful site.

To have an effective Web site design one must first consider who will be using the site. It is likely that the overwhelming majority of visitors will be folks who do not have the most powerful computers, the fastest modems, and the latest software. Instead, a typical user is likely to have a typical system, and that means some design concepts are off-limits.

For instance, a site could feature massive photos and artwork. I have seen individual Web pages with more than 400,000 bytes of material -- one topped 800,000 bytes. The graphics might be great, but because of their bulk such art takes a long time for most users to view -- too long.

A site could have lots of fancy JAVA scripts that rotate, come and go, and do all sorts of tricks. Viewing such items one time might be interesting. But twice makes them boring, and three times makes them a time-consuming barrier to usage.

A site could also be organized so that users must flip through dozens of screens to find desired information. Hopefully, the use of "flat architecture" lessens or eliminates this problem.

Lastly, instead of small, modular files, a site could have 10 or 12 massive files. Big files make it hard to find material and thus should be avoided.

Peter G. Miller is an image, marketing, and public relations consultant whose clients include selected national corporations, associations, and web sites. Mr. Miller can be reached at peter@boardroomarts.com