Two Common Web-design Myths

1. The Myth of “Content is King, No Animation/Sound/Java/etc.”

The adage “Content is King” applies to all Web sites. Sometimes this rule is taken to mean that Web sites should be graphically sparse and rely heavily on copy. It is true that when you add sound, animation, Java applets and lots of graphics, your Web page takes longer to load. Some of your visitors may not bother to wait for it to load; they’ll just go elsewhere.

However, this doesn’t mean that all pages with animation, sound and applets are necessarily bad. The trick is to know when they’re appropriate and to make the download speed as fast as possible.

When is it appropriate? The Sesame Street Web site has a Java applet that shows Elmo (a Sesame Street character) dancing. The child can use the mouse pointer to “tickle” Elmo and he responds. The applet takes forever to load on a 56K modem, but you cannot say that it is out of place: the site caters to young children who are there to play. In this case, the applet is an appropriate solution. Likewise, animation and sound might be appropriate for sites that feature comics or gaming.

Like all things, how you design your site depends on your topic and your target audience. Keep that cardinal rule in mind and you’ll be fine.

2. The Myth of “Good Web Design Is in the Graphics”

On the other end of the spectrum are people who believe that a good Web site must have a lot of color, graphics, animation and sound. But there’s a happy medium here.

Graphics on a page are fine; they make the page more pleasant to look at, and sometimes more enticing to read. But, the graphics should be as small as possible. While there’s no hard and fast rule about how big graphics should be, any graphic that tests the patience of your visitors should be removed. Test your site with a download utility like the one at Websiteoptimization.com to get a sense of how your Web site performs.

Some Page Design Tips

If your concern is that your page should look good without loading slowly, here are a few commonly-used tricks that you may want to consider:

Do not put too much text in one big block. Separate copy into short paragraphs and put white space in between. This makes your text look more readable.
Like colored pages? That’s okay, but in general, if the readability of your text is important to you, a white background with black text works best.If you truly prefer a colored background, try viewing it in resolutions like 256 colors to see whether or not the page looks all right. A colored page that looks fine on your 32-bit color resolution system could actually make text difficult to read on lesser settings.If you visit the Web sites of big companies, such as Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google, you may notice that they often prefer a white background with black text. Because these companies tend to have extensive resources for testing the usability of their Web sites, they provide a good standard against which you can measure your own.
You can reduce the size of the individual graphics files on your pages by:
- Cutting down on the number of colors in the graphic.
- Making the file size of the image smaller, if possible.
- In animations, lessening the number of frames.
- In animations, not duplicating the background in every frame; make the first frame a background without any objects that will move, and put all your moving objects in separate frames with transparent backgrounds.

Happy designing!