Keep the design of your site consistent. Keep the same navigation structure, background, colors and fonts to make your site more appealing and easier to use.

 

Avoid the use of underlining as a means for formatting text. Web users expect underlined words to be hyperlinks. Use Bold, Italics, and/or changing the font color for emphasis.

 

Be very careful when selecting fonts. Although you may have a lot of "cute" fonts on your own computer, there is no guarantee that the person viewing your page will have those fonts on their computer. If they don’t, they will see whatever their computer substitutes for your carefully selected font. The most common fonts are Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier New. Most machines also have Verdana, Comic Sans, Tahoma, and Georgia.

 

Avoid large and unnecessary images. The bigger the image, the longer is takes the page to load. Remember many home users still connect using a modem and a slow connection speed.

 

Be very careful with background images!!! A background image can make or break a web page. Solid colors or even white can be better than many background images. See below for more tips:

 

o The image should be very low contrast. It should not call attention to itself or make text unreadable.

o The image should be either very light (for black or dark text) or very dark (for white or very light text.) It absolutely must not contain both light and dark areas.

 

Ditch the animated GIF’s or use them sparingly. You should never have more than one element on a page that is flashing, moving, blinking, etc. This includes the FrontPage marquee element.

 

Avoid incomplete, missing, and "Under Construction" pages. If the page is not ready yet, then don’t link to it.

 

Avoid future links. A future link in a placeholder for a link you plan to develop later. It’s better not to list it at all until you have the link ready for viewing.

 

Place a "Last Updated" notation on every page. Or at least on your homepage. This lets viewers know when you have updated information on your site.

 

Verify all hyperlinks. It’s best to check the links on your site from a computer other than the one you created or edited your site on.

 

Use white space. Don’t try to fill up every nook and cranny of your page.

 

Utilize tables for layout. Tables provide a good means of obtaining control over the placement of page elements without worrying as much about what browser someone is using. This is much better than trying to space things out on your page using the tab key or space bar!

 

Try to follow the three-click rule. Every page on your site should be accessible with less than three clicks from your home page.

 

Avoid changing the default link colors. Web users are used to seeing links in the default colors of blue and purple. Don’t change the colors unless you have to in order for the links to be seen against your background.

 

Your homepage should be named default.htm. This page is already set up in your subweb and should be used as the home page. Your subweb will directly open this page when opening your website.

 

Always provide navigation links on every page of your site. Readers get frustrated with dead end pages. There should at least be a link to your homepage on every page. You should also include a link your school’s web site and to the Fayette County homepage.

 

Always edit your site "live" on the server. It is strongly recommended that you work on your web site "live", rather than editing a local copy and publishing it. Publishing a site can sometimes lead to errors. Just be aware that anything you edit is available online as soon as it is saved.

 

Remember that any content is only as good as it is current. No information at all is better than outdated information.

 

Content you should include on your site. The following are some common things people will expect to find on your site.

 

o Contact Information: school name and address, phone number, and your email address (it should be linked)

o Disclaimer: should be included on every page, or at least the homepage "Contents of this web site are intended to be used for the enhancement of instruction only."