The Do’s and Don’ts of Graphics in Website Design
The way that your website looks is very important. It is the first thing that a visitor will notice and will either entice them to explore, or send them on their merry way to another website that is easier on the eye. Sticking to these do’s and don’ts of graphics within Website Design will help you to appease those potential customers.
Don’t use backgrounds on your website that are so busy as to make the text difficult to read. Background images can be used to great effect, but only if they don’t detract from the vital element of your website, the content. If you wish to use a background image, consider creating a plain middle section of the website background image so that your content stands out instead of being lost in a busy background image.
Do keep any graphics files small to ensure that your website will load quickly, and that any downloads will not take too long. The internet doesn’t always run quickly, and the whole world isn’t enjoying very fast broadband speeds just yet. Therefore, you need to shrink your image sizes to suit those on the slowest connections. Test your website, if it takes longer to load than 10 seconds you need to shrink your graphics files (or change your hosting if the server does not respond as required). Websites should really load in only a couple of seconds ideally.
Don’t set all of your text to a font style that is difficult for the average reader to enjoy. Keep things clean and crisp, and in a contrasting colour to that of your background; light colour fonts should only be used on dark backgrounds, and dark colour fonts should only be used on light backgrounds. It sounds like common sense but many websites do not adhere to this simple rule.
Do ensure that any images that look as if they could be buttons or links are buttons or links. It is frustrating for visitors to try clicking on what should be a button only to discover that it does nothing. Likewise, you may wish to ensure that links are in an obvious and noticeable font colour and underlined to increase the obviousness of a link within a paragraph or other. Graphically, in your website design, you just want to make things as easy for your visitors as possible.
Don’t overuse colour in your website design, either in your font choice or your images. Ideally, choose a colour to theme your website with and stick to different shades of this particular colour. This will create a more professional look, and will tie every page within your website together to form a more unified whole.
Do test your website in every browser that you have access to. When it comes to the graphical elements of your website design, you may find that several things look different in different browsers. For example, in Internet Explorer should you make any images into links you will find an unsightly blue banner surrounding them.
Don’t ever assume that just because you like how something looks everyone else will. Before releasing your website to the world you should show it to friends, family, workmates or trusted clients to ensure that the design is as best suited as possible to its need.