website guidelines

A website shows who you are and what you're selling, but how can you keep up with current online fashion and avoid website faux-pas?

Some simple guidelines

• sites should be clean, uncluttered and easy to navigate - sites with gharish colours or poorly contrasting colours are unattractive and hard to read, lots of different fonts or font sizes are distracting, balance pertinent images with text.
• a site should work in all current popular web browsers wherever possible
• a customer should never have to click through more than 5 links to find the information they are looking for, and preferably less to avoid frustration
• links should be clear in both location and meaning but this doesn't mean they have to be boring
• avoid large, image heavy sites that take time to load
• animations should be subtle, attractive, eye-catching but not aggressive and bring something to the design of your site

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

This doesn't mean however, that you can get away with poor grammar and spelling errors. Your site is selling what you have to offer - it is an online demonstration of your suitability to provide a service and you want to make a good impression.