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Web Site Design Principles - Details

Create a Paper Blueprint

After you have a clear idea of the answers to the questions above, you can start to design the site. This should be done with a pen and paper, before the actual development starts:

1. Decide on the Content for your Web Site
   What images, text, are to be included? What structure will the content take - what information will be held on the main page, how will the information be presented (functional categories, alphabetical order, etc)?
    
2. Decide on the Interface Design and Navigation
   Usually, a website is designed in the form of pages. You must decide how many pages are to be included, and whether you want a front page or not.
   Each page should always provide a means of showing visitors to your site:
   • where they are within the site
   • how to go back to the index page
   • when they are linking out of web site to another web site, and where they are going to
   There are many conventions used in the Internet to guide visitors. For example, links are usually underlined, visited links are usually a different colour to visited ones.
    
3. Decide on the overall look and feel of the site
   This includes the layout of items, use of colour, uses of images and typefaces, the background colour or image used. A well-designed site is attractive, consistent in its use of colour and imagery, and uses colour and graphics to suit the subject matter. See Web Graphics for more information.