The User Friendly, Good Site Guide

It is very important that the information on a web site is clearly presented and easily navigable. The most popular web sites are usually highly user friendly with a minimallook but very functional design. Good example sites include the BBC web site and that of the search engine Google.

While designing your site many issues are considered to ensure that both you and your customers will be happy with your site. These include:

• Fast loading - If a web site does not load quickly then users look elsewhere. Your site has about 3 seconds to make an impression. At Jargon Free Web Design, we ensure sites load quickly by minimising the use of graphics (compressing those that we do use) and not using any animations.
• Scrolling - Users do not like to use the scroll bars. While some degree of vertical scrolling is acceptable, horizontal scrolling is a big taboo. We limit the width of our pages so that users never have to scroll horizontally (even those with 15 inch monitors) and limit the number of words to 500 per page to minimise the amount of vertical scrolling.
• White Space - The use of white space on a page is very important as the page appears less cluttered, the user doesn't feel like they are being overloaded with information. www.jargonfreedesign.com, uses this technique to good effect and many people comment on the sites clean appearance.
• Uniformity - To project a professional image it is important to keep the same style throughout the whole site.
• Background Colour - A white background colour should be used as this is easiest on the eye. If a colour must be used then it should be a light pastel shade.
• Line Width - If the lines are too long then the reader can have difficulty in finding the start of the following line.
• Pictures - These should be framed (even if by a very thin border) so as to give the effect of it being fixed to the canvas. In design terms, if they are not framed then they to 'float' and don't appear to be part of the page.
• Navigation - It is important that the information on your site is easy to access. It should be split up into small, easy to digest topics. Before presenting us with the content for your site, you should have a clear idea of how you want it to be split up.