Designing a Website

Designing a Website
Matt Hazlett
WEB/240
July 21, 2012

Several aspects must be considered when designing a website, and the most important ones that we have to consider include scope of the website, layout, compatibility, use of text, and secure mechanisms. Other than these, other aspects like navigation, links, graphics, and general design play an important role in the designing of the website. A more detailed look at the above aspects of designing the website is given in the bullets below:
(Design Criteria for Kelsey Website) * Scope of the website- The website should have a specific target before designing has begun. The scope should be set so as not become too congested, confusing, and hard to navigate for users. * The site layout- This should follow a chronological order which makes it easier to navigate. Use of heavy images and animations makes the pages take longer to load, and make potential viewers lose interest. * Compatibility of the site -When users log onto the site they should able to view it with every web browser. * Use of text –This should be easy for the customers to understand and be accurate as well as relevant. Provision for other languages should be considered if your site could possibly serve international users. * The site should be secure – This is a must, especially if it is a site that conducts business with the public and requires users to give up their personal information. Security measures should be in place to give users confidence in the site, as well as any other companies working with the site should be trusted. * Text on the website- should be big enough to read and the back grounds should not interrupt or make text invisible or hard to read. * Navigation buttons –These should be easy to understand, consistent throughout the whole website, and helpful for the user to know where they are as they run through the web pages on the site. * Links- These should be distinct, with the colors coordinating with those on the web page, and should also be underlined to make them clear to visitors. * For the graphics - Buttons should not be big, every graphic should have an alt label, graphic links should all have text links, graphics and backgrounds use browser-safe colors, and animated graphics should automatically turn themselves off. * Finally, the general design- should make page download quick, the first page and home page should fit into 800 x 600 pixel space. Graphics should be used also to break up large areas of text in the website breaking monotony, and every page in the site should carry distinct looks from the parent site or home page.
Evaluating Web sites
To evaluate a website they are five basic criteria that should be followed to make the evaluation successful. These five basic criteria include accuracy of the site, authority, usefulness, how current, and presentation. * Make sure that the source and content of the site are accurate. This can be done by validating the information with more than one source. Make sure the facts on the site are documented and verifiable, the site contains a bibliography, copyright laws are respected, the site is up to date, links are appropriate and up to date, no significant information is omitted, an explanation of the research method is given, proper grammar and spelling is used, and the article is either not biased or is biased but in this case whether the article is fact or opinion should be made clear. * Authority of the site can be verified is by looking up the author, and publisher or sponsor of the site. An author should be clearly identified and known in the field or recommended by a well-known person in the field. Also, the author should be easily accessible with an e-mail or postal address. * Usefulness of the site can be determined by answering the questions about whether the site addresses a topic being researching, whether the information about a topic of research is comprehensive, and whether the site contains links to other sources that address the topic. * Current information determines the validity of a site and is essential when making site evaluation. This is done by determining when information was published, when the site was last updated, and how current the links provided on the site are. * Finally the presentation of the site can help determine how reliable the site is. This can be evaluated by determining how easy it is to find information on the website, whether the design is appealing, whether the organization of the website makes sense, and whether sections are properly labeled.
Evaluation of Kelsey High School Website Design
Kelsey High School website is a site that is designed for a younger audience, mainly elementary students and high school students. Its purpose is to make the public aware of what the school offers and to build credibility in interested parties about the quality of the education it offers. To determine whether the school website is well designed a list below describes the website design. * The website is compatible with the top browsers like, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Google Chrome. * The use of text on the website is relevant and the text is readable to the user and is not affected by the background. * Link colors are well marched with page colors making the links easy to use and find, and they are also underlined to quickly identify them. * The navigation can be improved on by changing the images that appear on the top of the pages to let the user know that on clicking a navigation button the page has changed because when clicking on some of the navigation buttons it takes a minute to actually know that you are looking at other information especially since the picture stays the same on different pages making a user think that it is still the home page. * The graphic links used all have marching text links, the graphics and backgrounds are using browser-safe colors, and buttons are not too big. * The site informs the public about the school, teachers, grades, and all the necessary information, however, it does not show were a student can enroll or if it does it is so hard to find on the site which may deter users, unless the site is not intended for online enrollment. To make the site more user friendly a form to allow online enrollment or enrollment information should be introduced to the site. * Finally, the general design allows pages to download easily, graphics are used to break up large areas of text, and every web page in the site looks like the parent site with repetitive elements like navigation buttons that are carried throughout the pages. However, changing the pictures as pages are opened during navigation will make it easier to know what page a user is on.
Comparative review of sites on eBay and craigslist
Comparative and Competitive Analysis of Websites Worksheet

Questions | 1st Website Amazon.com | 2nd Website Craigslist | The First Look | http://www.amazon.com/ | http://bham.craigslist.org/ | What was your initial impression of the site? Did you feel bored, overwhelmed, or confused? | My initial impression of Amazon.com was that it was not a site that was centered on the sale of books anymore as I had thought. It felt almost like eBay to me with several different categories. | Well boring and confused at the beginning since all that was listed was cities and nothing specific about what the site was about. | How much time did it take to realize the purpose of the site? | Well it did not take me long to realize what the site was about, I quickly found out that Amazon.com is no longer only a site for books but several other categories. | When I clicked on my city then it took me to the next page that gave me an idea of what the page was about. That was not long | What is the target audience for the site? | From looking at the type of advertising on the site, I would say the targeted audience is more targeted for the younger generation, college students, and working class families. | I would say adults from 18 and above, since it covers several categories that may only be limited by not being 18 years old. | Did the site look the same in multiple browsers, if multiple browsers were available? | The site looked the same for the most part when using different browsers with exception of small effects like fonts, use of icons, and placing of titles. Other than this it was the content was identical. | Content was identical as viewed using different browsers, however fonts, position of titles and use of certain icons was different. | Was there contact information immediately available? | From looking at the website, it did not really have any special number to refer to as contact information; however, they had the help in case you had any problems. | Contact information was not obvious even though the copy rights were shown at the bottom of the page. | Were there indications that you could trust the site? What were the indications? | Sites that have copy rights give me confidence that they are professional, also the appearance of the site the gives it a professional look and the presence of a login to an account that you are prompted to create if you do not have one gave me confidence in the authenticity of the site. | Indications for this site included copy rights, the professional outlook of the page, and the details in so many categories that would not have been created by a con artist. | Was the text easy to read and easily scanned so that you did not have to read every word? | The text was easy to read and easily scanned | Text was easy to read and scan | What are your thoughts about the layout and colors of the site? What impression do they give? | The layout of the site seems very attractive, eye catching and it gives it a welcoming and professional outlook. | Coloring was not impressive, however since it is a list not necessary a product it is okay without the graphic presentations as amazon.com. The layout for a list of different items is impressively created. | Finding Your Way Around | | | How was the navigation organized? | Navigation was organized from top downwards. The table of categories was at the top and then everything followed in that order | Navigation is not specific in terms of top to bottom. All that is required is an area or location being clicked on and then a list of links of categories for that area appears which you can navigate as you wish. | When using the navigation, was it intuitive or did you need to use some trial-and-error to figure out what was behind each link? | I did not have to figure out what was behind the links since icons already determined what to expect as well as titles on the links. | The links were well labeled and so you knew exactly what to expect on clicking the link. | Was there a clear way back to the home page from every page of the site? | Amazon had a clear way back from a different page which you could do with the back arrow on the top left or clicking the Your Amazon tab on the left of the page. | It did have a clear way using the back arrow which would take you through page to page and the Craigslist tab that would take you to the front page. | Did you find the navigation to be consistent throughout the site? | Navigation stayed consistent through the whole web site. | Navigation was consistent on all the web pages. | Were there any pages on the site that forced you to use the back button because you could not figure out another way to move forward? | Did not have any page that did that they all allowed me to move forward. | All pages allowed me to move forward | The Content | | | How easy was it to find the important information? Was it prominently displayed or buried in detailed paragraphs? | Information was relatively easy to find, the prices, the information on payment, deliveries and so forth was easy to find. | Important information was easy to find with a click of a link. | On pages with lots of content, were there features to help you find what you were looking for, such as links across the top of the page that took you to other parts of the page? | Different titles allowed you to find what you wanted on pages with so much content | Titles guided you to know what you were looking for even as you opened different links. | If there were articles on the site, could you tell when they were written? | The articles in this showed the times they were posted which could tell you how current the article was. | The articles showed date of writing or when they were updated. | Did images on the pages contribute to the user experience? | The images enhanced the look of the page but they also gave you a view of how the Item you were purchasing looked like. | As it is mainly a list they were not many images to look at but links. | Was the text well written and free of mistakes? Did you find any spelling errors? Were there broken links? | Text was well written with no spelling errors | Well written text with no errors that I could easily notice. | Your Thoughts | | | What impressed you the most about this site? | The look or the site, with use of items you need as the links, as well as ease of finding what you need and quickly completing a transaction. | Ease of locating what you needed from the lists which were well categorized to make it easy to find what you wanted in a big database. | What features on this site would you want to make sure to incorporate into your own site? | Using of Icons as links, the back buttons, and home button to allow anyone that is using my site to move back and forwards at the tap of a button. | The back buttons, and categorization of items that my website is offering. | What would you change if you were the owner of the site? | If I was the owner of the Amazon site, at this moment I don’t see what I would change, since it seems to be well constructed. | I would change the lists and use icons to represent categories, so as to make it more attractive than just a look of boring lists. | What features on this site would you make sure to avoid when creating your own site? | The features I would avoid on this site would be logins since my site does not really require the public to have an account and login. | I would avoid using a table format on my site | | | |

REFERENCES
http://www.roseindia.net/services/webdesigning/corporatewebsitedesign/What-are-the-features-of-web-designing.shtml.

References: http://www.roseindia.net/services/webdesigning/corporatewebsitedesign/What-are-the-features-of-web-designing.shtml.