WebDesign 101: Creating Universal Content
While on the surface, it may appear that website design primarily deals with the organization and display of online content, something as trivial as the amount of text a given site should house or even the font face one should select are crucial design considerations. Too much media and not enough text may have a detrimental affect on one’s rankings in search engines. Likewise, electing a “cursive” or “fantasy” font family may result in differential displays of your site, given that each web browser has built into it its own font substitution coding.
The second concern is easily addressed: stick to one of Microsoft’s core web fonts (ie: Arial, Georgia or Verdana) to ensure universal display, readability and cross-browser compatibility.
In terms of how much text each page should contain? While there is no set “hard and fast rule”, it goes without saying that too much text is overwhelming. Keep the end user in mind.
Reading information off of a computer screen (or worse a tiny mobile screen) is hard on the eyes. A general website design guideline suggests that “one should be able to look at the homepage of any site and figure out what it is about in less than four seconds.” In sum, keep is simple, short and sweet. Remember that generally speaking (unless you run an exclusively online business), potential consumers visiting your website likely only want basic information (ie: contact details, location, a brief about section etc.) – enough to help them decide whether or not they should set up an appointment with you in-person or endeavour to take the next steps in finding out more information by contacting one of your customer service representatives.
Finally, never use graphics where text would be suitable. Not only does this increase the size of the page (which results in longer loading times for the end user) as well as affect search engine optimization, but further once re-sized for the web, graphics often appear jaggy and of poorer quality. Moreover, correcting spelling and/or grammatical errors once the text has been embedded into a visual display is a lot more onerous than if you had just used straight forward text in the first place.
Netpros.ca along with their sister company Inspiratica.ca are proud to offer easy and affordable web design, development and hosting solutions for their customers. Let our staff (available 24 hours, 7 days a week) assist you in answering any questions you may have.