Lost in Translation - Page 2 of 18

By Christen Gruebel

Design Stars

Don’t neglect these essential building blocks:

• Color. Robin Williams, author of The Non-Designer’s Design Book, recommended making a palette of four or five colors. Use the hues that are included in your branding/logo, plus one or two complementary colors. Or, simply use shades (adding black) or tints (adding white) of your business colors. Make sure there is contrast to ease readability.

• Font. “Stick to fonts that have been designed for the low resolution of the screen,” Williams noted. If not, type faces can look different on various machines and throw off the entire layout. She suggested Verdana, Trebuchet and Geneva, or if you’d prefer a serif font (the font type that has the “feet,” see main story for an example), Georgia.

• Size. Designing within the 800x600 pixel size will ensure the important information will appear right away, without the user having to scroll down or sideways to view the whole thing, said Williams.

No comprende? (Spanish, yes, but you get the drift.) It’s pretty scary when you realize the Internet is not a fad and is not only here to stay, but it will likely build strength. And that is, unfortunately, what’s happening with most websites. Instead of helping their hosts, many sites are working against them. And it doesn’t take a tech geek to figure out that’s not good for business. “Nothing will lose customer trust faster than a poorly designed or unusable website,” said Nick Finck, director of user experience at Seattle-based Web-design firm Blue Flavor.

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 All Next »

0 Comments

View Comments

Christen Gruebel Author's page