Boot Camp

Web Authoring Boot Camp
Strengthen Viewability
Regardless of the visitor demographics and client’s preferred color palette, there are a few
style basics that enhance ease of use.
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• Contrast: The contrast on a web page is the difference in visual properties that
makes an object (or its representation in an image) distinguishable from other
objects and the background. In web design, good contrast means that the weight
and color of text and hyperlinks stands out easily from the background color of
the page, for instance.
• Size: The size of objects (text blocks, images, thumbnails, navigation buttons,
etc.) is important in helping a website be easy to use. Images that require scrolling
to see, or big blocks of unbroken text, can make a page look crowded or overwhelming.
Items that are too small can create too much white space and make it
hard to discern the main point.
• Colors: Colors are important in two ways. The correct use of color combinations
and contrast can really help a website be easy to digest, while poor color choices
with bad contrast make it impossible. For instance, red text on a yellow background,
or blue links on a black background, are very hard to see. Plus, colors can
also trigger moods and associations in visitors. If your target audience is young,
bright colors and lots of black appeal, while a senior audience benefits from conservative
and generally muted but good contrast colors. If the website is meant to
appeal to an international audience, knowing which colors are truly taboo to different
cultures can help you make the site appealing rather than a turn-off.
Layout Size and Resolution
With so many different configurations that visitors have their computers set up with, it
can be difficult to decide how a website should be sized so that it is attractive and viewable
as much as possible. Here are a few tips:
• Design to have your page elements be very visible and tidy between 800×600 and
1280×1024, since this range captures the majority of current laptop screens and
desktop monitor resolutions.
• The norm is to optimize for 1024x768 screen resolutions. For most sites this will
cover most visitors since the average low-price monitor or laptop screen has this
as a default resolution.
• Keep in mind that the real width of a 1024x768 screen is about 960 pixels. If you
design with fixed widths, consider 900, 925, 950, and even 980 pixels in width.
Don’t design wider, because visitors don’t usually scroll to the side and find it
uncomfortable.