Web Design Guidelines for Developing Consistent Navigation: In making professional Web site design, consistency is the most important factor to keep in mind. Nothing is more unprofessional in Website design than a different colored background for every page. Backgrounds, colors, fonts, navigation buttons all need to present your site visitor with the same appearance. Your visitors should be able to navigate to any page on your site within three mouse clicks of the homepage. Keep this simple rule in mind. Remember the 3-Tier website structure from my article "How to Plan a Website?" You can keep your website elements consistent when you use the same template for every page on your site. Essentially, consistency is about making it easy for your visitors to find what they want. Use headlines and underlines clearly to identify headings. Each page should be clearly identified and fonts should be consistent in color and size from page to page. You want your readers to become accustomed to a consistent website layout, so they can move quickly and easily through your website.
Your Home Page should link to each Tier-2 Page. Each Tier-2 Page should have a link back to home page. Your site's home page should act as the crossroads, the point of origin for all traffic going into your site. Always include a link to home on every single page. This way, if users do get confused, or just want to start over from the top, they're only one click away. You should always put navigation bars on the left side unless it is impossible. You visitors want your navigation bar to appear on the left side of the screen, and that is where they look for it. So do not deviate from the standard. Web Design Guidelines for Page Backgrounds: No one likes to waste time squinting to read text on floral, striped, or otherwise busy backgrounds, not even you. You will most likely get a headache just looking at the background. Imagine if you had to read a portion of text with that image in the background. Web Design Guidelines for Pages that load Fast: Your visitors are in hurry. They would not stay on website that takes time to load. The more bells and whistles you include in your website design the more time it takes to load. Therefore, page elements that slow down the time it takes to display your pages may be forcing your impatient surfers to escape. Large or animated graphics, Flash, and audio elements of any kind disrupt the bandwidth. Your website design may include graphics that are compressed to the smallest size without affecting appearance. So it is vital that you keep page sizes as low as possible.
Pop-Ups: Pop-ups are not very popular with Web surfers. Most of them use pop-up blockers on their browsers. Focus on your customers, and limit the use of pop-ups as much as possible. Check Your Website Design in all Three Browsers: Keep checking your Web design on at least the latest versions of the most popular web browsers i.e. Internet Explorer and Firefox. While no site looks identical on all monitors, browsers, and computers, you can design sites that look good on all, but only if you test the site on all. Design for the whole site, not the particular element. Make sure that your web site elements complement each other and deliver the overall mood and impact that you want your viewers to experience. Consider these points seriously. Do not design just to please yourself. Gurus recommend simple designs, including easy, clean left-hand navigation. Clean, simple designs and navigation are favorites to both humans and search engine spiders. The spiders can't see the design, but they do love easy-to-follow navigation! Humans, of course, love both design and easy navigation. And eventually, the engines track human response. Moral of the story: Keep these website design guidelines in mind and look around for the other Websites on the net and learn from what you see. That doesn't mean copying, but instead, studying what others have done and understanding what works and what doesn't. Here are some great online resources helpful to professional Web site design. Keep Learning! Avoid Politics and religion. Include only those pages that are relevant to your topic. Let your individuality shine through on your own voice. Inject your own unique sense of humor and personality. Give your readers a reason to come back for more of your personal wit and wisdom. Keep your design clean and simple, with plenty of white space. Don't con fuse surfer with a multitude of choices. Make it easy for him to find his way to access content, and to buy. Limit your use of exotic design elements such as Flash technology. You want your site to be attractive, but you are not entering an art contest. Keep your atten tion, and your visitor's attention, on your message. Ease of navigation must be one of your primary considerations. When your visitor reaches your home page, he should be able to instantly understand the layout of the site and links to all the other pages. As much as possible, link all your pages to each other. Your over-delivering quality content will keep them in!