Web Design Principles

Content (the key to a good site)

Your site should be match purpose, should be well organized, should be spellchecked, should observe correct English (or the appropriate language), Some sites have information in more than one language, depending upon the possible audiences, should be current information and should be appropriate for the audience.

Level of Web technology to best suit the purpose:

Minimal Style – mostly text, little or no graphics (quick loading, does not require lots of memory or a high end graphic card)
Middle of the road style – some graphics to add an element of design or style, which compliments the information, but does not detract from the main purpose (still easy to load, may be more apprealing than minimalism)
High tech style – lots of graphics, animation, java applets, “art” text, video clips, etc. (could be suitable for an audience of tackiest with high-end equipment, but could lose the average audience waiting for the images to load or trying to navigate links not clearly identified as such).

Style to best suit purpose

Professional
Scholarly
Casual
Child friendly
Ten oriented
artistic

Page design – consistency, clarity, user friendliness:

Include a “back to home” link
Use a consistent template in each page
Create a uniform color scheme (with limited color palate)
Be sure there is sufficient contrast between background and text
Avoid too large font that shouts
Avoid too small that hard to read
Place important information near the top
Avoid long lists of links if possible
Categorize lists in smaller chunks and provide internal tags
Provide a table of contents (with links to find information in a long list)
Organize your material to too much scrolling to find content

Graphics:

.jpg image format (compressed file format for high quality images - photographs)
.gif image format (for graphics files, buttons, clip art not photographic quality)
Animated .gif files (use sparingly. Is animation appropriate to the theme or a distraction from your main purpose?)
Flash animation (Provide a “turn off” option for flash)