GoodDesign

=Elements of Good Web Design= > >
 * **Well-organized** Viewers equate "poor organization" with "poor design." The most important information on any page should be "above the fold" as they say in the newspaper business. Your site should be easy to read ... on the screen or printed. Viewers should easily find their way around your site, and locate important information quickly.
 * **Consistent** Keep the look and feel of your website consistent. Look at popular websites to determine color schemes that are easy to read and visually appealing.
 * **Click****, Don't Scroll!** Keep 'em moving with a site that has many short pages, thoughtfully linked to draw them through your website. This is probably the most powerful, but often overlooked, advantage of using websites to present information.
 * **Share your Knowledge** Everyone has knowledge that their audience might find useful. Use your website to showcase what you know and what your are interested in! White papers, "how to" and "helpful hints" as well as publications you have shared in paper form all make good content, if they are organized and edited properly.
 * **Helpful Links to External Sites** While you may be concerned that this will take viewers away from your site, keep in mind that they will leave anyway if they don't find what they're looking for! If you provide a list of useful links, people will return to your site for reference. A well thought-out list of links adds credibility to your site, and in fact, will get your site listed higher in directories such as Yahoo!
 * **Intelligent use of Graphics** A picture may say a thousand words, but if it takes too long to load, who will get the message? On the other hand, nobody wants to look at a site that is all text! We try to balance the graphic elements with the text so the viewer's interest is kept alive, and your message gets across.
 * **Easy to Read**
 * Make sure that you text is easy to read for your visitors. Don't place text over backgrounds that make it difficult to read.
 * Try to use common fonts that are available on most computers. Deciding to use that cute "Fancy-Script" font may look great on your computer -- but anyone without the font will see plain block text.
 * Since web surfers have a short attention span, you should make text easy to scan. This can be accomplished thorugh liberal use of bullets and headings.
 * You should also break large blocks of text into smaller two or three sentence paragraphs.