sixbells said:
Where to begin...
Pray! A lot! No seriously. there are so many factors to
consider it is mind-boggling. First know the demographics
of your target audience. Have a thorough design plan
using the inverted pyramid method, as well as mind-mapping.
Then there are the different web safe colors, different
fonts for three of the most popular browsers (Netscape,
Microsoft and Apple). Frames versus tables, different
scripting languages, and the "Design Truths":
Always develop to the lowest common denominator and do
your usability testing with as many various HW/SW
configurations by a team of mostly naive end-users.
This may be a little dated, but develop to this basic
configuration:
- 15" monitor
- 640x480 screen resolution
- 56 KB modem
- Browsers 4.0 and greater
- And remember that very few users will take the time to
download plug-ins.
The problem with deveoping to this specification is that the resulting
limitations will make your site a lot less appealing to the majority of
people who have larger monitors with higher resolution, broadband
connections, and the latest browsers. Do you want to turn off your
tech-savvy, up-to-date visitors to please relatively few tech-backward
guests? Not me.
REMEMBER, you have ten seconds before the average end user
loses interest and moves on, so a lot of white space along
with quality content is the KEY! Use the newspaper as a
metaphor, give them the headline and a little information
on the front page, the a link to the rest of the
information.
Where does this "10 second" figure come from? Perhaps it applies to
teenagers who are surfing in order to be entertained, but that's hardly all
the web is for. A lot of sites, such as the kind I design, are for
corporations, universities, consulting firms, etc. People come to these
sites for a specific reason and I hardly think that you have to catch their
interest within 10 seconds.
