WEB DESIGN: make your site the best it can

I noticed that many websites are trying to portray themselves as if they were a TV network. They put top-notch graphics and sound in their web page. What these companies are missing is that visitors are not watching TV. This works well for those with broadband connections at high speed. The fact is that most are viewing the website on a screen that is between 15 and 19 cm wide, can see only 216 colors, and can not download at 28.8 kb per second.

You as the owner of a website, designers and anyone who has control over a web site should follow a simple rule: be sure to be on a 28.8 connection type in the URL of the web page, press enter, and hold your breath. If you need to gasp for air before the page is fully loaded at the bottom you really need to reduce the size of the page. The web page must not be greater then 50K. Try to shoot for less than 30K. The number one visited the homepage of the site is under 21k.

All graphic images should be as small as possible. Try to make them smaller than 4k. Going up to 6k is reasonable. When designing a graphic for the website to keep in mind the number of colors used. As a graphic designer, it is difficult to go from millions of colors at only 216. Yes, 216 is the number of colors is available on a web safe color pallet. Use solid colors when designing the image. PhotoShop has the gradient of a folk instrument. Good things seem to fade in and out. Always get an edge backdrop of this gradient. Right click on the image to see the size. The 8k-12k is not worth the space. The problem with the gradient is that it uses many colors and dithering. Both take up Big Time K. The color in an image that is going to be larger.

Use more design, graphics less. For a website to succeed it needs to download quickly and look good. Instead of graphic design and take pictures and turn them into jpg to make the page look good, try to use combinations of colors. Use colors of the cells to make boarders. Use the negative space on your web site. What there is just as important as what is. Always remember less is more. Think of a typical visitor coming to your web page. I would like to sell more graphics or keep them coming back again and again. If the answer is yes, by all means keep it. If the answer is "well maybe" or "looks just fine there," throw. Audiences will appreciate not wait any longer then they have to. The web is here to make our lives easier not to sit in front of a screen waiting for webpages to download heavy .......