IFWORLD's 10 must-know principles behind building relevant, dynamic and compelling websites.
You have to carefully balance image and download time. There is a happy medium where the site looks great but the file is small enough to download fairly quickly.
Traditional methods may not apply to the web. Think outside the box for new advertising and business processes.
Don't make your visitors search for your products or services. Tell them what you offer on your home page. If your visitors have to figure out what products or services you provide, chances are, they won't.
Don't frustrate your visitors with tricky navigation schemes or unfamiliar jargon.
Don't make your visitors work to find content. Design your website to accommodate productivity demands of your clients and keep everything within 3 clicks.
No pop-ups! Keep your audience in mind and design for their expectations.
Professional web design firms know how to make you look good. Take advantage of their expertise and have a site that reflects your company's image.
Check for broken links and grammar mistakes. Have a friend navigate your site to see if the menus make sense. Open your site in different browsers to see how it loads. Find problems before your visitors do.
It is better to give than to receive. Don't charge visitors to browse your pages.
Keep your content fresh and current. Add new information frequently so visitors have a reason to return.
We recommend that you upgrade to one of the following browsers:
Netscape 6+, Opera 6+, MSIE 6+
In an effort to create a more organized World Wide Web, the W3C has created many new Web layout standards. The key focus of their effort is to provide the best possible interoperability between the different browsing programs available.
In the days of the browser wars between Netscape and Microsoft, many hacks were propagated by the competing companies. However, today these hacks have done more to hurt the Web than to help the battling companies. By downloading and installing one of the programs listed above, the Web will be one step closer to eliminating these hacks and bugs.