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6. Provide a way for users to get back on the homepage on every page of your site
When a visitor lands on your page, they must have clicked a link that brought up one of your pages. Some of them gets lost along the way and would like to go back to square one. Be sure to provide a visible textual link for them. An icon is fine, but not all Internet users would easily understand that it’s supposed to bring them back to the homepage.
Make your homepage useful by providing a link to all other categories on your website. This is an example of good homepage in terms of functionality and aesthetics.
7. Provide two menus on every page
Not all users are interested to go back to the homepage before they reach other pages or categories. Provide menus on top, which is either below the header or on the left or right panel, and at the bottom. By inserting menus on both areas, they wouldn’t have to scroll up or down to reach the navigation panel.
8. Resize the images
Take the time to compress the images for better user experience. An image of 360 kb will take more time to load than a 25 kb file. You don’t want user to wait that long or they leave your site. You can search the Internet for free software that will compress your image. One you can use online is www.imageoptimizer.net that will also allow you to download the software for free.
9. Mind your fonts
There’s no rule when it comes to size and style of your fonts. But it is worthy to consider your audience first before anything else. Windows OS default size is 10 pt. But I find websites with bigger fonts such as 14 pt to be easy on my eyes and I am therefore, more inclined to read the full context. Compare these two examples where the first one uses 10 pt.
Aside from font size, consider also the style. Be sure that you use fonts that are easy to read. Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, and Tahoma are just some of the easy fonts to read.
Don’t take the fonts on your website for granted. There’s been an experiment on people who received instructions using fancy fonts and another set of people with simple fonts. It turned out that it took 15.1 minutes to complete a simple instruction written on fancy fonts, while 8.2 minutes only to complete the same instructions on simple fonts. Why? There’s a psychological reason to this: When people receive an instruction with simple fonts, they assume that the task is easy and their mind is set on it.
If you want your website to convey that your instructions and guidelines are easy to follow, start with your fonts. Make it bigger and simple.
9. Use contrasting colors to make your text easy to read
That should be obvious right? Light text on dark background or dark text on light background. But why are we seeing websites using red fonts on blue background?
The current trend on web design seems to lean on inverted color scheme (white text on black background). Although I have nothing against it, I just believe that choosing aesthetics against readability, I prefer the latter. Take note that text on print material is different than those on the screen. Texts on screen are pixelated; therefore, it strains the eyes as it is forced to focus more than reading on print. Add a dark background on screen and you have just tormented your eyes.
10. Avoid using all caps on sentences
Capitalizing a few words in a sentence gives emphasis. But if you use all caps, especially on lengthy one, you lose the effect because everything looks the same.
Third Part of 20 Web Design Tips
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