Principles of Web Design Information on B'wood Site
Think about the look you want and decide on a theme or color scheme, and background. Your site needs to have a similar appearance from page to page, so a visitor to the site will not think he has left the site. Decide on navigation bars or buttons, so that site visitors can get from page to page easily and will find navigation in a consistent location. Think about whether you want to use shared borders, and think about how they may affect what your layout.
Define the intended audience for this site. Who will visit this Web site, look for this information or be entertained by what they find? Do you have any content to develop? What is the source of the original information you will provide? Why will they choose to return again? What problem does this solve? What will you add to the Web that was not previously there? Remember, you must site sources if you are not using original graphics and information. Also, if you are planning to reproduce information and graphics that are already on the Internet, is your site going to have value?
What type of browser will your audience use? Internet Explorer, Netscape, AOL or something else? What resolution will they likely use, and what will be the bandwidth of the connection they will use? Hopefully your design will be user friendly for all browsers and bandwidths, but you should remember that not everything works in every browser.
Have you considered what graphics you will add? Coordinate graphic banners with your color scheme. Include original photos that add value to your site. You may wish to add horizontal rules or other graphic dividers. How about graphics that add interactivity? Perhaps you want to add some dynamic HTML such as rollover buttons. Some graphics may need to be lightened or darkened in Photoshop. Some images may need to be cropped.
Plan the site on paper.
 | What text or graphics do you wish to use? |
| Where will you get the information you need? |
| Draw a storyboard (rough graphic layout) of the main page, including the colors, graphics and text. |
| Draw other pages which the home page will link to, and how you intend to link them together. |
Limit the amount of time to load each page to 30 seconds on a 56K modem. That means display graphics in the smallest file size possible if you wish to use very many graphics, or consider thumbnails.
