Craft > HTML Tips

Introduction

There are lots of really good HTML tutorials on the Internet, so why are there so many really bad Web sites? Probably because most people can learn to write HTML, just like most people can write a letter with a word processor, but doing a good job at either takes more than knowing how to enter text.

Hire a Graphic Artist

If you want a good design for your business, you should hire a graphic artist who specializes in Web design.

Follow the standards

Browse W3C.org's Web site and read the articles on accessibility guidelines. You will find tips that can make your site easier to navigate, and that will help search engines determine how to index your pages.

Most commercial Web sites fail the accessibility guidelines abysmally. The reason may be the intended audience, but more likely it is a combination of things including ignorance.

In my opinion, commercial sites that display banner ads and open advertisements in new windows are awful. I don't know anyone who reads advertisements while browsing the Web, but I know lots of people who buy things online by going straight to a company's Web site and making the transaction.

The following tips will help you create a site that users will find easy to navigate and professional in appearance:

• Design so that pages displayed with a screen resolution of 800x600 fill the screen.
• For the home page, try to make the entire page fit without having to scroll down.
• Use space efficiently - check the proportions between your logo and menu, and between every section of each page.
• If you use a menu, make sure the same options are available from each page, and make the menu and menu options appear in the same location on each page.
• Users should see some indication of which page they are on, either graphical or textual.
• Don't use a tooltip that repeats exactly the text of a link.
• Body text in your Web pages should be written between opening and closing tags of elements (i.e. do not put body text between the opening and closing body tags without enclosing the text in some html element or elements, such as <p>).
• If your site is a commercial site, use fonts like those you see on other commercial Web sites.
• If you use images for rollover effects on your menus, pre-cache the images. If you don't know what that means, you should either buy a book on JavaScript, hire a developer, or don't use rollover effects.
• Don't assume all users have javascript enabled and style sheets enabled. Try viewing your site with those features turned off in the browser's options.
• View your site using as many different browsers, and on as many different operating systems as possible.
• Provide text equivalents for non-text elements (e.g. images, frames, scripts, images used as spacers, images used as bullets, etc. - see accessibility guidelines at W3C.org.
• If using frames, provide a way for users who have frames disabled to navigate your site. Use the <noframes></noframes> element for this; anything you put between the opening and closing tags will appear only if frames are disabled.
• Validate syntax (HTML, CSS, etc.) with one of the freely available validators (e.g. W3.org).
• If your audience includes people with impairments, view your pages using tools designed to overcome impairments: screen readers, self-voicing browsers, magnification software.
• Run a spell checker and grammar checker on the finished text of each page.

Links to More Information

Reference

Tutorials

Other Resources

Graphics and Fonts

Copyright © 1999-2008. All rights reserved. | Contact | About SwansonSoftware.com