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Create Quick Loading Websites - November 13th, 2008
There’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for a web page to load. In fact most internet users will not wait more than 10 seconds. So if you want to hold on to your visitors and lower your bounce rate try the following design tips to speed up your page load times.
Multimedia Files: Music files, flash animation and video clips can slow down your website dramatically. If you have a piece of music or a movie that you really want your viewers to access try providing a link to an online player instead of embedding the file on your webpage.
Javascript: Scripts such as those that create drop down menus can contribute to slow loading pages. Try using CSS to achieve the same functionality in a more efficient format.
Templates: Website templates are cached by the web browser on first load so any subsequent pages using the same template load much faster.
Images: Excessive use of images can slow down a website hugely. If you do need to use several images on your site, for instance in photo galleries, ensure that their individual file sizes are as small as possible. Software such as Adobe Fireworks can compress images for web use.
HTML: Well written HTML, CSS and the use of minimal images results in fast loading pages. Optimise your code by removing repeated or redundant HTML tags.
Background Images: When creating headers and footers use background instead of full images. The visual effect will be the same for the viewer but the page will load much quicker.
Once you have finished your website build or redesign check your pages to see how long they take to load. There are various browser plugins available to help make your job easier.
A Selection Of Design Tips - November 11th, 2008
- Redesigning the wheel: When you first visit a site, you will pretty much always want to know how to navigate it as soon as possible. You do not want to force the user into working out how, where and when they can navigate through a menu structure. It would be a really bad idea to try and re-invent a navigation structure that is already tried and tested in thousands of other sites. In short, keep menu’s or navigation across the top, or down the sides.
- Don’t use a start page, splash page or home page unless absolutely necessary. Think about your favorite online store.. I doubt very much that they have a home page that welcomes you in like an old friend, then insists you click somewhere so you can actually enter the store. By all means have a home page, but put something useful on it. New products, last purchases.. that kind of thing.
- We all like colorful sites, but most will work from a certain pallet of 3 to 5 colours. This is not a coincidence. Working to a set colour scheme improves branding, makes the site look professional, clean and stylish. That’s not to say that colorful sites are bad, but they are usually more suited to Children’s sites.
- Whitespace, the space on a site that is not filled with text, images or anything else is a fantastic way of making a site look a whole lot better. There are no real rules as to where and how to use white space, but generally, you should have a fair amount of a page empty. Your site will look a lot cleaner for it.
- Interior designers work a lot of the time in thirds. It somehow looks a lot better when there are odd numbers of ornaments on a fireplace, or the room it painted with 3 stripes instead of 4. This theory holds with web design as well. A page will look better if it is split into thirds instead of quarters,Web design in general works better in odd numbers.