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Guide 7. How do I create my website?

Web design principles: development resources, structuring text and choosing fonts (screen 3 of 17)

Get input from people in your organisation

If you have some design skills you should contribute to the design of your Web screen. Your input is needed to ensure that the website reflects the flavour of your organisation. If you have a costume gallery, for example, this should be obvious from the time the first screen of your website is loaded.

However, because of the specific design requirements of the Web, expert help is usually necessary. Especially if you don't want to be listed by the site called Web Pages That Suck(1). (By the way, this site promotes good design by looking at bad design - worth a visit!)

Site development resources on the Internet

There are a lot of places on the Internet where you can find information to help you enhance or develop your website. Builder.com(2), Developer.com(3), Webreference.com(4), Webdeveloper.com(5), MSDN Online(6) and Project Cool: Web Development Basics(7) are just a few.

Structuring text

When designing a screen of text you should recognise that most users are impatient readers on a screen, and don't want to read great slabs of text. They want action. You need to accommodate this new way of accessing information when you design your screens and construct documents.

For example:

• Keep the text to a minimum.
• Divide it into short sections.
• Use descriptive subheadings.
• Ensure that it is easy to read against its background.
• Use illustrations and other devices to break up the text and make it look more inviting.
• Use a table of contents so users can go straight to any section that interests them.
• Use an index or anchors at the top of the screen to give users an overview of the content.
• Ensure that the illustrations don't slow downloading too much.
• Frontload - that is, put the important information first so that the user can find it quickly.

Have a look at our Guide(9) on how you can manage long documents on the Web.

Choosing and using fonts

Serif fonts (like Times, Bookman, or Palatino) are easier to read on paper, but sans-serif fonts (like Geneva, Arial or Helvetica) are easier to read on screen.

You can choose, to a point, what fonts you use but keep in mind which fonts your users would have on their computers and which fonts browsers support.

So keep your choices simple and provide default alternatives in your font face HTML tags. For example, on this site we use Arial, or if that's not available, then Geneva. So our font tags are <FONT FACE="arial,geneva">. It is a good idea to also include Helvetica <FONT FACE="arial,geneva,helvetica,helv"> as many people have Helvetica on their computer.

There are lots of other fonts available from the Web(10) and some, like Microsoft's Verdana(11), are designed specifically to enhance readability on the Web. Keep in mind that not all browser versions and not all computers will support Verdana so you'll need to provide an alternative if you use it.

An example of a site which uses Verdana and other screen-optimised fonts such as Georgia and Trebuchet is Jacket(12) poetry zine - of course your computer and browser will have to support those fonts for you to see them!

Some websites provide information about using fonts on the Web(13).

Font readability

Readability is even more important in Web design than it is when you design a paper publication because you have much less control over placement, letter and word spacing and line leading. Choose one font for your body text and either the same or a complementary font for headings. The smaller your font size the harder it gets to read on the Web screen, so keep font sizes reasonable.

Remember also that users may set their preference files to override your font choices and font sizes.

Because different browsers and computer systems display Web screens differently, fonts may look and behave differently from machine to machine. This may impact on the screen's look, feel and layout. Ensure you test your layout and look with your standard fonts on a variety of browser and computer system configurations before your site goes live.

 

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References

1. Vincent Flanders' Web Pages That Suck.com http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
2. Builder.com http://www.builder.com/
3. Developer.com http://softwaredev.earthweb.com/
4. Webreference http://webreference.com/
5. Webdeveloper http://webdeveloper.com/
6. MSDN Online http://msdn.microsoft.com/default.asp?
7. Project Cool: Web Development Basics http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Door/7051
8. Guide 5 screen 5 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g5/s5.htm
9. Fonts on the Web http://webreference.com/authoring/graphics/fonts.html
10. Microsoft Verdana font http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/fonts/verdana/default.htm
11. Jacket poetry zine http:/jacketmagazine.com/
12. Using web fonts http://webdesign.about.com/cs/fontuse/

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