Consistency is Key A well designed website is consistent from page to page. By definition consistency means agreement or logical coherence among things or parts. If you visit your local In-N-Out Burger® (It’s a California thing!) for lunch, you expect the hamburger to look and taste the same each and every time. The ingredients in the burger are in the same order every time. If you go to the supermarket, you expect items that you are looking for to be in the same location each time. If by chance they rearrange the store, you become confused. So it is with a web site. Your visitors should know where to find certain things on every page. They should feel comfortable after a few minutes. Remember, “If you confuse them, you lose them.” Following is a list of things that should be consistent on every page.
Background Color, Texture, or Pattern
Background images and color should be a major consideration. Your color choices should fit the topic of your site. Contrast is very important. Unless you have a good reason, you should not deviate from the proven dark text on a light background. No matter how much they are interested in your content, visitors will not remain on your site if there is not adequate contrast to make the text easy to read. Remember, you are designing for your visitors, not for yourself. A site that conforms to user expectations makes visitors more comfortable and more apt to visit again and recommend the site to their friends. Visibone Color Lab is a site where you can compare HTML colors side by side along with their decimal and hexadecimal RGB values. You might also want to look at CSS Color Names and Hex Values.
Page Width
Page width should be taken into special consideration. Never have horizontal scrolling because users find it annoying and most likely will not stay. Even though a majority of people have their screen resolution set at 1024 x 768, there are many who still use an 800 x 600 setting so you need to design your web site for that resolution. This means that all your graphics will be designed for this resolution also. A page width of 780 works well.
Logo, Page Title, or Banner
Support your own website or your own “brand” by creating a logo or website title banner and placing it on every page in the exact same place. Link the logo or banner to your Home Page.
Web Design Tips: Consistency
You have decided to become a webmaster and contribute to the World Wide Web. After careful consideration, you have an idea that will likely do one of the following: provide useful information, solve a problem or answer questions, provide entertainment, or sell a product or service. After all, these are the main reasons why people surf the internet. You have a web host for your site, and you have registered your domain name. You have outlined your site on paper, and you know what the basic pages are and how they should be linked together.
After doing all of this, there are some basic things to consider when putting your site together. Here are some ideas that may be helpful.
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Navigation of links on your site plays a big role in determining how long your visitor stays and explores your site. The navigation system should be clear, simple, and consistent on every page. Your important links should be in prominent places, usually on the top or left side of the page since readers start at the top of the page and read from left to right. If your page is long enough to make scrolling necessary, you should also include navigation at the bottom. Your navigation menu should have the same format and be in exactly the same place on all pages.
Font Selection
Font selection is important. You should choose readable and professional looking fonts that will be available on all computers. Verdana is one such font which was designed specifically for the web since it is readable at small sizes on a computer screen. (It just happens to be the one used on this site.) Arial and Helvetica are also common and professional web fonts. On the other hand, in my opinion, Comic Sans is a typeface that does not look as professional. In fact, it was designed to imitate comic book lettering, for use in casual and informal settings. Don’t ask me how many times I have clicked out of a website that uses Comic Sans in a dark color on a dark background. It somehow just doesn’t look as professional. (There are entire websites devoted to Banning Comic Sans!)
Tip An easy way to make sure your web pages are consistent in the above items is to create a template. Create a page that has all of the things necessary throughout your site and save it as a template. When you are ready to create a new page, open the template page and, under the file menu, click “Save As…” then give the page whatever title you want. (Don’t forget to change the title in the page properties.) Here is a screenshot of my template page.
