Sep 21

Written by:
2010/09/21 08:32 AM 

Web design and development is an art and a skill. Many can create any old website, but few can make it into a masterpiece and a joy to behold.

Just because you can throw a few html tags together and add a few pictures, does not mean you can create and develop websites.

Here are some myths about website design and development that you might hold to.

1. Flash is good. Like anything else, flash is only good in moderation. It’s heavy, search engine unfriendly. Yes it’s nice and pretty. So is a big old picture, but you wouldn't make your website out of one big picture. Flash is not evil, but used incorrectly in can be.
2. Images make the site look pretty. Yes images do enhance the site. But too many images and badly placed images can do the opposite. Also too many large images cause your site do become very slow.
3. More colours the merrier. Too many colours will not only hurt your site, but it will hurt the eyes of your readers. Keep your colour theme to 3, max of 4. Use colours that agree with each other. Read up on colour theory.
4. Websites look the same on all browsers. Obviously if you believe this you have not tested your website on different browsers. However, the simpler the web site the less differences you will find and vice versa
5. Web design and web development are the same. Wrong. Web design is the look and feel of the website. Web development is the technical aspect including any application interaction that goes on behind the scene. Design is about coding Often the line is blurred between the two, but they are not the same
6. Avoid using JavaScript. This might have been true back in the early 90’s. But not now. All modern browsers have JavaScript capabilities. It’s a myth that most users have it disabled. To prove it, have you got it disabled?
7. Never use tables. Oh how I hate it when web designers blurt this out. Tables have a place in web design. This widely circulated myth originally came because people were being told not to build tables-based layouts and use CSS instead. But once again, used incorrectly can have a very very small effect on your site But none that you will readily notice.
8. People will read your website. Who has time to read? Web surfers rarely take the time to read your text. Instead, users tend to scan your site for information and will only read your content if they have first found what they are looking for by scanning. So pay attention to scanning. Make your content scanable.
9. Design before content. Hello! The primary purpose of a website is to display content. The content will dictate the design and development of your website. If you are just interested in showing off a good design, then become a graphic artist and draw pictures.
10. Your website is the best there is. Do I really have to expand on this one. Everyone thinks their website is best. But what do your readers think?

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