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The Art of Web Design
Few years ago we ran African Best Sites
Award. If offered me the opportunity to give
professional advise to up coming web site owners. We
temporarily suspended the service and should be back
online soon. Since the suspension, I have been
clicking some links associated with emails mostly
from fellow Africans. Some of these sites could not
pass the initial deployment of web sites that is in
the late 80s. Despite the fact that there are many
resources on the web, some African web sites are not
pleasant to browse. If colours are not rioting, one
image will be jumping, text will be flowing from
left to right or something will be scrolling
somewhere on the site.
There is a difference between interactive web sites
and sites where texts are scrolling, images are not
properly tamed, poor background, poorly chosen font,
cascaded tables and etc...
The original language to display contents of a web
site is HTML - Hypertext Markup Language.
Programmers will not agree that html is a language.
A visit to sites like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun
Microsystems, HP, Google and etc should be a guide
to would be successful web developer. While the web
sites of the above named companies are sitting on
high technology, the pages they offered your
browsers are pleasant to look at, not jaggy, render
well in almost all available browsers namely
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and etc...
According to Michael L Bernard of Software Usability
Research Lab, Dept of Psychology, Wichita State
University who wrote in his piece - Criteria for
optimal web design (designing for usability)
"Designing a website that takes into account the
human element requires both an understanding of our
nature as well as our physiological limitations.
Usable websites incorporate human tendencies and
limitation into its overall design. The questions
below are meant to address some of the more
important human factors concerns in the design and
building of usable websites."
How should information be positioned in a typical
website?
What is the best way to arrange menus?
How can I make my website's structure more
navigable?
How should text be presented within a website?
How can I effectively use images on my website?
Are frames ever appropriate?
How can I design a visually pleasing interface that
follows usability principles?
How can I reduce the major user annoyances on my
site?
How can I make my site more accessible to children?
How can I make my site more accessible to older
adults?
How can I make sure my site follows general Web
conventions?
How can my website promote customer sales and
loyalty?
How can I make my site more appealing to
international users?
Summarizing the above it is obvious that you should
know your audience.
Today many users are still on 56 Kb modems, millions
could only read text and so on. They should be
considered.
In conclusion, while some African websites are
resource demanding, there are millions of web sites
designed by Africans that are appealing to sight.
For more information, question, contribution to this
article, review of your site by our experts, please
contact me directly.
Dele Olawole
D-Net Communications
www.dnetcom.com
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