How to Design a Web Page - Content

Content is king

Write your content with your audience in mind. Web users like to feel that they are listening to a real human being. However, that does not mean that you should not use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Don't overuse slang or regional expressions, everyone is not from the same country as you, and it's easy for things to get lost in translation.

Design for ease of use

People do not like reading as much text on a screen as on a page. Therefore, you must make things easy for them. Design your website to complement and enhance the text, and be careful not to overwhelm it with fancy menus and images that distract your readers from the important stuff; Your content! Split the text into easily digestible chunks; use short paragraphs made up of short sentences. Give each topic its own separate page if it makes things easier to read. Five concise pages are better than one single sprawling mass of text. Use bullet points and lists to make things simpler. Emphasize important things using header tags or bold to make them stand out. Try to break things up as much as possible into smaller sections that people will be more inclined to read.

Design for accessibility

Not everybody who uses the web can see perfectly. Some are visually impaired; others may even be blind. Yet they are still quite capable of using the Internet, if web designers follow a few basic rules to make things easier for them.

• Fonts should be resizable - it is tempting to restrict fonts to a specific size in order to preserve your design, but it is important that you allow users to choose for themselves. There are a huge number of articles on the web about creating layouts that will respond dynamically to changes in text size.
• Many visually impaired people use screen-readers to navigate the web - one way in which you can improve their experience of your site is to make sure you use proper .html, improving the accuracy of the screen-reader.
• Don't use images to as a source of information, but to reinforce the information given in the text. Ideally, your site should work just as well with images off. Try viewing your site with a text only browser, such as Lynx, to get an idea of how it will be seen by a screen-reader.
• Make sure you make good use of your image alt tags. Give a concise description of the image contents. If you include many of your site's Meta keywords, you will help your SEO too.

You need to make sure that everyone can access and view your content, and that it looks the same on everyone's computer. That means testing. Get as many people as you can to test out your site in different browsers, different resolutions, and different platforms. Make sure it works in the same way in all of them.

Conclusion

If you emphasize design over content, your users will get bored and move on, and your site will sink back into anonymity. By following the suggestions in this article, your website will be rejuvenated, and your content will get a chance to shine. People will read what you have to say. If they like what they hear, they will come back again and again…