Whats Important To You When Designing Your Web?

[galexcd 0]

Unlike what alot of the members have posted here minimalistic and "dial-up friendly" websites are not exactly what I go for. I am more interested it making a classy (a website with lots of images and smooth either glass or 3d-looking curves but NOT FLASHY) I love tables and everything organized nicely, I don't like websites with tons of animated annoying gif images or strange background colors. In my opinion your background color should not be colorful at all. It should either be white, black, or a shade of gray, and if you must use a color, make it very muted, either so dark its almost black or so light its almost white. In my opinion this makes the website look professional and not like you just threw it together in a few seconds.

When making my website the most important thing is making all your information easy to access when you need to edit. Cause going in to 100+ pages just to add a new link will take a lot of time out of your design.

I must say though if your website is coded with php this isn't much of an issue, just those terrible html only websites *hissss*

[Forbez 0]

I enjoy having to design the website, from the css sheet. Having all the basics, borders and background colours, to make something which loads fast and is easy to the eye. I also always have some sort of slideshow which is easy to use, just upload the image in a certain folder on your site and it will be added to the slideshow.Always have 2 coloumns, one bigger then the other. The banners sometimes I have them so they change on each load, that random image.php trick. Also I normally add different skins, if the website I design is in one colour, I allow them to change it.

[FLaKes 0]

I dont really care if it has graphics or not, as long as its innovative. If it has something new I am definitely going to like it. The first websites that came out with the very glossy images and logos were cool, but then every site was soon like that. I have seen some wierd and cool sites that are unique and original in the way they display their webpage, or in the way that they are designed, and for me those are the websites that count. Though most importantly, before all of this, the user interface does take a really important part, well atleast when its a website in which Im looking for important information. I can really get annoyed If I dont find the specific content I am looking for in a short amount of time.

[Unstoppable 0]

I prefer to make non-flashy and non-epilepsy-causing websites. Since I love the oriental, I try to make my sites look that way somehow. Like said before, simplicity!

[reconraiders 0]

standards-compliant = better search rankings = more and better traffic = more money

[faund 0]

It's depends on the situation. Who is supposed to be the visitor of the website is very important to me to choose what way to design my website.In general, I take care for things in order of importantion below:1. Standard. I want my website will be in same appearance with popular browsers.Because I can't decide what browser my visitor will use. To keep my website standard, I will refer to W3C, Never use "advanced" features from any single browser.2.Low traffic When I browse a website in very long load time, I will simply leave it. I think who visit my website will do same thing like me. So, it's important to keep quick response at least for the home page. I think using AJAX is a good idea. And when I write code, I will pay attention to optimize it. Even when the browser not load all code, something will be displayed as soon as code be part transfered.3.Style I want my visitor will remember my site when he see some special recognizable signal. I think that's what we call style. whole site with a consistent style show some culture to visitor.

Edited September 23, 2007 by faund (see edit history)

[bishoujo 0]

A lot of people seem to place too much emphasis on the design of the website. Actually, navigation is very important too. The navigation menu should be easy to find. And visitors should be able to identify which links will lead to what sort of content. Visitors don't like websites that waste their time, no matter how nice it looks.

Edited September 23, 2007 by bishoujo (see edit history)

[soleimanian 0]

i think a site should desi

[sylenzednuke 0]

Well, according to me the first thing I take care about is standards compliance. It not just helps me bring out the site properly in all browsers but at the same time correcting my mistakes and errors just sharpens my skills and makes me a better web designer. Other than that, the layout counts a lot but I'll get to that later.

The other thing is navigation, it has to be pretty well-organized and simple. People should know clicking what will lead where and so simple links too. And the navigation should be positioned properly on the page and links and lists would help your visitors enjoy their stay on your site. And even will makes things easy for them. Visitors should find the stuff they're looking for on your site easily and if not it's pretty irritating and time-consuming.

The content, no one would care if the design and all is good but the content is really crappy. I am known to have a bad grammar and so I ask my friends to always help me whenever I am writing something, except for casual conversations or debates. The content and everything should be well-placed, easily distinguishable and good on the eyes. Graphical headings and other mini-graphics here and there within content should make good use of Typography and should go with the layout if it's graphic-heavy.

Well, theres two obvious ways to go. When everyone has been saying simplicity, they are talking design. However simplicity can often be complicated to design effectively, which makes it nice. But, sometimes creating that b-e-a-utiful graphical layout that isnt bulky and still amazing... is, well, amazing. I personally dont worry bout dial up users.
Anyway, for myself, it depends on the project. If the project contain alot of text, articles, ect... then the site should be developed simple. However, if the content is graphical based... then I believe the site should be heavy. Thats within reason. Of course, good-tutorials.com did a good job, but alot of the sites they lnik to are graphical because they have tutorials. Meanwhile GT is simple, but they depend on a directory which is very textual.

So, if you have alot of textual content, then rely on simple. If you have good quality content, then rely on simple. However, if your content if graphical, or lacking - sometimes you have to cover up with a nice layout that makes some "awwweeeeee"'s.

In the end, it is in the best interest of the designer. Depending on what you want from your site.

Now coming onto the layout part I completely agree with 9block here. It really depends on the web-site. If it's straight-forward content, listings, business or something then a simple, minimalistic and effective layout would be a good option. But if it's a graphic/gaming-centric web-site than you need to have a good, maybe bulky graphics-heavy layout. But it shouldn't be chunk-ish and should be good on the eyes and well-organized at the same time. Well you can't guarantee a dial-up friendly web-site this way but you can't give excuses for other turn offs. A cheesy background and hundred of ugly gif files count as graphic-heavy too but again even the graphic-heavy layouts should follow most of the guidelines minimalistic layouts follow.

Flash is good for certain navigation and headers as well as if you've got a really good idea of a design like here -> ([/url=http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/) but apart from that I usually hate Flashy web-sites who don't require Flash in the first place.

[soleimanian 0]

i think a site should designed simple and without any additional components.

[hitmanblood 0]

Well it higly depends on the content which you are presenting and which group of people you would like that is you would preffer to visit your site. Here are some groups and design you might find helpful:* Geekz they prefer simple design that presents information in clear and simple way, and all informations are easy to find. prefarrabley several menus which connect to other pages and search box also they like good and fast respons or support if your site needs it.* Buisness People - they like also simple presentation of content not too fancy but stylish also they would like to see all informations and more over they need all informations to be accurate and in time because most of those guys are alergic to late informations.* Girl content - well they like attractive well designed web sites stylish and colorful they are often more attracted to certain web site with design then the contetn itself.* Health - Niclely design nothing too much but nice because it attract several different people categories the best thing to do would be to try and make several ways of presenting content also with confirmations from scientists and doctors.This was just basic nothign much just to keep discussion on.

[komigen 0]

Simplicity.

[Carson 0]

The main thing for me would be how the site looks, which is one of the more obvious answers. But I also aim to make the site as quick as possible. No body likes waiting for ever for a site to load. Has anyone noticed how fast the Xisto.com site loads?

[shadowblade 0]

i think what is good for web is that the web maust have a great interface, low size, easy to navigate, low bandwith, so people will meet no difficulties to open the web. But what the most important is the content itself. Although the interface is good, if the content is just a *BLEEP*, it could not be called "a good web"

[MiniK 0]

I also prefer to be standards complient. XHTML is definately the way forward. I also try to use javascript to display the page content, so the users don't have to keep changing pages, if a large proportion of the pages are already loaded and waiting to be displayed it makes things work faster.Graphics have to be consistent with either the theme or the design. The less megs the images take, the better.