One of the more important things that are being suggested for accessible websites is the availability of an About Us page. This page would include information about possibly the website's subject, be it living or inanimate. The About Us page might also go more into depth about the website itself as well as the site owner and/or webmaster. For our Sample Products Website, we'll go a tiny bit more into depth about a handful of items to consider as the very basics for designing one's own website.
Colors
There is a colorchart available from which you would choose maybe three colors that normally are used to represent your company logo and anything related. The colorchart is considered websafe which means that your colors will remain as close to consistent as is possible across all browsers used to access the Internet. It is highly suggested that the main text be a very dark, if not black, color, and the background be an extremely light coordinating, if not white, color to make reading your website easy on your visitors' eyes.
Content
To come up with the text for your website, you can decide what message it is that you want to get across to your audience. Once you have decided that point, it is very frequently suggested that you break it up into easily digested little chunks so that you hold your audience for as long as possible. Ideally you would want them to see everything you have to say but will design your information knowing that most webpage visits are a quick hit~and~run kind of deal.
Graphics
Graphics can easily be taken from your own logos and any images or photos taken from your place of business. There are some graphics available on the Internet but most require that some kind of license be purchased first before they are used. Graphics can be manipulated to go just about anywhere you want them on your website and can be used as links to guide your visitors around, also.
XHTML Code
When I code my webpages, I currently do so in XHTML 1.1 (which means strict) and in conjunction with cascading style sheets (CSS). What this means to you is that I am trying to make sure that any pages I design have an eye on the future direction of webpage design on the Internet as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium, the W3C. Pages I put on the web these days are first run through the HTML and CSS validators over at W3.org. Any errors you see showing on pages I design are reflections of something in the advertiser's or web host's coding. No matter how hard we try, there are some things we can't fix. :o)
BTW (By The Way), you can shut off most if not all of your error messages in Internet Explorer (IE) so that all you might see is an annoying little yellow warning yield sign down on the bottom lefthand corner of your page. Just go to Tools (top of your IE window) then Internet Explorer and check the various options available on each of the tabs. If you mess something up, all you have to do is reset to the default IE settings and start over!
Navigation
Navigation is how surfers will bounce around your site. The more consistent you are in where your links end up, the less frustrated you will find your visitors. It is highly suggested by those who have been there before you that you at least place links to the left of your main text and at the bottom. Additionally, you can also have links across the top of each webpage. Make sure that every page contains the same links in the same order each time.
Products Page
Now that we have looked at a few things that you will need to consider regarding your website, let's take a quick look at the...
.....Products Page