[chrymo]

Web Development Tips

Since most other articles delve on design as well as the proper coding and markup of your sites, and more articles detailing to design in an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) point of view, this Article will be discussing a much less ignored but obvious Tips you should take into consideration when building websites.

Building with Customer in Mind

Usually we watch our statistics like what OS (operating system) is popular, what browser is frequently used as well as the resolution of the visitors screens are taken into account. The most forgotten part which is the most important is what speed does your visitors internet connection use.

Design with speed consideration

We usually optimize our codes; please don’t forget also to optimize your images. Lets talk about the common image formats. For example you have an image with only three colors on it which you will use as a logo. Saving it in Bitmap is forgettable; saving it in JPEG is fairly the most common route. Now, incase you forget, GIF’s had a bad reputation because of the 90’s complex of designers over use of moving images which GIF particularly do well. GIF’s are also particularly good to use on transparent needs, like curves and edges. Now on our example, saving the image in GIF wouldn’t do much harm to the image because it only consists of 3 colors, thus compressing the file size of that said image in jpg, even more in gif.

The point in case here is that you must design pages that wouldn’t make dial-up users wait forever… See, dial-up users are using internet speeds of 56 Kbps (Kilo Bytes Per Second) Maximum. No Problem for DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and Cable Users, Broadband speeds are pretty common nowadays, but did you know that dial-up users still outnumber them?

What’s the catch? Well since you developed your web pages for dial-up, it will show lightning speeds on broadband users. Take note that your web hosts transfer speeds also apply here. Try making your sites using dial-up, and then you’ll get the frustration of your visitors.

What else?

Since your customer is very important, use fonts that are clear and readable. Use fonts like Tahoma and Verdana, pretty common but does the trick. Use standard font sizes like 12 pixels, not unless your target market is the youth that you can go smaller than that. Take in mind that users sometimes increase and decrease their font sizes that pretty much destroy the layout of your pages, so take this into mind also. (This part is my problem too in my site; I forgot to make it adjust freely). Also don’t forget to make the links behave more like a link, let it be more obvious, your site navigation should easily be found. Contrasting colors for background and font color would be a great tip too. Always remember the first rule of design, KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid).

In Closing

Develop a site that makes the experience of your visitor less confusing and more interesting. I’m not saying I’m the best person to give this Tip, but I might say I feel the pain too since I’m both a developer as well as a visitor on other sites. In Perspective, a site that leaves an impression is a site that proves useful and less of a headache to use.


copyright by chrymo 2005