5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website's Legibility

Websites that make their customers work to read them are not the best way to get business. Miniscule fonts, text in colors that make it hard to see against the background color, and lines that are piled on top of each other are problems, but they're easy to correct. Let's jump right in and look at five easy fixes:

1. Format your text using CSS.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are the way to go - use one style sheet and control how text looks on your entire site. Make a change to the style sheet and your whole site is updated. It makes life a lot simpler.

2. Make the font size big enough to read.

Consider your target audience. Even if they are a group of teenage girls looking for new shoes, it's never a good idea to use tiny type. It doesn't have to be enormous, but up to a point, larger type is better. 12-pt Verdana is better than 8-pt Verdana.

3. Make the text contrast with its background.

The more contrast, the better. Black-on-white or white-on-black are examples of the highest contrast you can get. Use colors if you like, but if you squint at the page and your text basically vanishes, there's not enough contrast.

4. Give the lines room to breathe.

Don't stack lines on top of each other. Use the line-spacing directive in CSS and give it some space; I'll often set line-spacing to 140% of the height of a typical line.

5. Break text up into chunks.

No matter how good a writer you are, people don't want to read endless pages of text. Break it up by using headlines that reflect the subject of the paragraph(s) to follow so people can scan down to the parts that really interest them, or use bulleted lists to change the pace of the writing and slow down the scanning.

And finally (not one of the 5 Easy Ways to Improve Legibility but still quite important) check your spelling. Nothing irritates me more on a web page than spelling errors - it simply makes you look like you don't care enough to get it right. Use that ubiquitous spellcheck tool.

Making your website's content more legible is easy. It doesn't take a lot of time, mainly common sense. The payoff will be text that's more readable, customers that stick around long enough to get your message, and improved credibility with your visitors.

Website Templates

Website templates are web page designs created by professional web designers that are sold to others for their use. Templates normally have dummy content used as a placeholder so you can see what a finished page will look like. A template is an easy way for a novice to create a good-looking professional quality websites quickly and easily. 

Most of the commercially available templates can be found in a variety of themes and color schemes. Theme templates come complete with appropriate graphic for each theme. If you have some graphic or web design skills and a knowledge of HTML, you can create a customized professional looking website at a fraction of the time it takes to create everything yourself. Just remember you don’t own the copyright to the design. 

Before selecting a template, you will need to identify the goals you have in mind for your website so you can select the most appropriate template. 

Advantages of Using Website Templates 

There are several advantages to using templates such as:

• Templates provide the basic webpage layout.
• Templates can provide a consistent look and feel for the site.
• Most come with professional quality graphics.
• Most allow you to customize the graphics if desired.
• It is usually easy to add your content using almost any HTML editor.

Disadvantages of Using Website Templates

• It can be difficult to make any web design changes unless you are skilled in both HTML and can use a graphics program like Photoshop.
• Although features like a login box may be part of the template design, the programs needed to make them work are not included.
• Any interactive features have to be integrated into the template.
• You do not own the copyright to the design unless you actually purchase it from the designer.

Features of a Quality Website Template 

The following items are things to look for in a well-designed web template. A template should:

• Be easily editable.
• Be compatible with most HTML editors.
• Upload easily.
• Come with complete html files.
• Have header graphics provided in psd format for easy editing.
• Have their both the fla and swf files if the template uses flash.
• Download quickly after the content is added.
• Retain the original design no matter how much content is added.

Customizing an HTML Web Template 

If you want to customize a web template but don’t have the necessary skills to do it, most template designers and other web designers offer template customization services as reasonable prices. These services usually involve minor design changes, customizing header graphics, adding logos, removing unneeded unattractive elements, etc. 

Many web developers will be happy to integrate any interactive features into your template. Please keep in mind that the developer will either need to write the necessary scripts or modify existing scripts to make the interactive features work. If an existing script is not freeware, the web developer will have to add the cost of purchasing a license for the script to his labor charges. 

Customizing a Flash Web Template 

If you want to do anything more than just add text or substitute a graphic file in a flash template, you will either need have expertise in creating flash programs or hire a flash programmer to modify the template. 

If the fla files came with the template, you can modify it using a flash editing program such as Macromedia Flash or Swish. If the fla files are not available the first thing that needs to be done is to decompile the movie since the swf files are movies. Once the movie is decompiled, the necessary changes can be made and the flash movie recompiled in any flash editor. 

Summary 

A quality web template can allow a novice webmaster create a professional looking website quickly and easily at a reasonable cost. Since the templates came in a variety of industry specific themes and color schemes, you should be able to find one that is right for your website. 

Web template can offer the professional designer a lost cost alternative to creating the web design, header graphic, logo and all of the other graphical elements, which will allow them to charge less for their work. In either case, it is important to purchase a quality template.

Banner Design Success Techniques

Banners have been a major part of the World Wide Web world since its early days. Copywriters burn the midnight oil looking for new designs that will grab the visitor’s attention and compel him to click on their banner. This article discusses some of the most successful banner designs. 

Teasing your curiosity 

“Do Not Click Here”. How many of you have seen this slogan in a banner? What did you do when you first saw it? If you are like most people, when you first saw it, you clicked on it. What makes this simple sentence so powerful that it compels the visitor to click on it? The answer is curiosity !!! 

Copywriters and web designers are always looking for ways to arouse the website visitor’s curiosity. As banner designers their goal is to attract the visitor to the banner, usually completely ignoring the other elements on the web page that are more important to the website owner. However, because the “Do Not Click Here” slogan tells us nothing about what is on the next page, it arouses the visitor’s curiosity and makes it almost impossible not to click on this banner to see what’s behind it. 

Simple integrated design 

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin first introduced their product, “Google”, to potential investors, they mentioned Adwords as a backup option in case they didn’t make any money. We all know how lucky they were that they eventually needed to use that backup plan. What made these “boring” ads such a great success? 

Unlike other ads, Adwords neither arouse the visitor’s curiosity nor disturb the main flow of the web page. In fact, the opposite is true. Adwords are meant to look like part of the search results giving the user the feeling that those ads are there because he asked for them. No one has any doubt that this simple design helps Google to promote both their search engine and the Adwords advertising program. 

Take part in the action 

Banner designers wisely used interactive technologies like Flash to develop type of banners that invite the user to take part in the action. Drawing the user into the action can be accomplished in many creative ways. Some web designers use popular old games elements as part of the scene. You all know the famous game pacman. One of the banners that I like the most is the one where the user is allowed to let pacman “eat” few dollar signs. At the successful completion of this mission, a nice slogan is revealed asking him to open a saving account that will earn money with a fixed interest rate. The idea behind those interactive banners is simple: Let the user take part in the action and then at the right moment when his mind is less resistant, show him the sales message. Those interactive banners proved to be very efficient. Their biggest disadvantage is that most webmasters will not allow that kind of banner because it distracts too much from the web page content. 

Back to Black and White 

Website designers are always seeking to be different with their design ideas. One banner fashion trend that can be found lately is Black and White banners. Although research shows that blue and yellow are the most efficient color to use in a banner, Black and White banners have been seen a lot lately. It’s probably something that will eventually vanish, but the idea behind it is to be different and to make the user wonder what’s up and hopefully click on the banner to find out. 

Get Out of the box 

Have you heard about the milliondollarhomepage.com? If not, check out this website before continuing to read this article. This website has proven that creative thinking not only can bring you money but also create a whole new trend. Right after the milliondollarhomepage.com got the internet community’s attention, many designers used this idea to deign a banner on which they sell a 10x10 pixel area. Like the original concept, this banner design had its impact. Advertisers are investing money on these ad spaces while at the same time visitors are curious enough time after time looking at those unorganized pixel banners to click on them. 

What about the next trends 

What the next trends of banner design will be is something that probably no one can accurately predict. It’s up to some web designer to come up with a new concept that proves to be efficient. There is no doubt that in the future we will see new ways of designing banners, especially when more and more advertising budgets are being spent on the internet instead of commercial TV and other types of advertising media. I guess we will just need to be patient.