Creating User Friendly Websites

When you first consider creating a website you have to decide what subject the site is going to cover. Some people may consider that the easy part of the project. Others just know they want to develop a website. No matter what the subject matter, one thing is for sure: the more user friendly the website is, the more traffic you will be able to attract to it.

When you create a website you want to make it easy to navigate through it. For this article, let’s assume you’re creating an informational website called CCJ Mortgage Information. You want to design the site to impart information about mortgages to Internet users and help them understand how the mortgages work, what interest rates are, and other financial information that related to the subject. You already know that you want to include mortgage articles, a mortgage calculator, and a blog. Once you know what you want to include on the site, you can start laying out the design.

The easiest way to navigate through a website of multiple pages is by using hyperlinks. This will also help when you set the site up for search engine optimization because the spider program most search engines use can easily move through the hyperlinks. You can make the site look nice by using buttons that are easy on the eyes and look professional. Even if your website is a personal website, it should be easy to move through and pleasant to look at.

This leads us to another point. Your mortgage website, while professional, does not have to have a boring background. If you want to add colour to your site, it is best to use light coloured backgrounds with a slight pattern to it, such as a parchment pattern. This still makes your website look professional and classy. Use a text colour that can be read easily on the background you choose and in a font that is fairly standard across the board. Some people may not have the more fancy fonts loaded into their computer, forcing them to use whatever they have and taking away from your text.

You are going to want to stay away from using frames as many people cannot get them to load onto the computer. If you have pages of articles, make sure you list a comprehensive table of contents of the titles and a brief description of what the article is about. This way your guest doesn’t have to troll through all the articles trying to find the ones the want. This is another way of making your website user friendly.

Try not to make your website too graphic intense. You have to keep in mine that not everyone has the most top of the line computer and their processor may still be slow. You could offer the website in two versions: one with frames and graphics, and one without. That way the user has a choice. The adage ‘less is more’ is good to remember when building and designing your user friendly website.