Home
Forums
Awards for You
Winners
Awards Won
About Us
Past Layouts
Past Updates

Site Rules
Site FAQ
Site Staff
Credits
Link to Us
Link Exchange
Linkage
Affiliation

Latest Contest
Previous Contest
Contest Winners
Mini Contests
General Rules

100x100 Icons
64x64 Icons
70x70 Icons
AIM Icons
Archived Icons

Signatures
Buttons
Banners
Wallpapers
Enter Signs
Hiatus Signs
LJ Headers
Friends Only Banners

Div Layer
Tables
iFrames
PopUp

Brushes
Extractions
Vectors
Icon Bases
Icon Creator

HTML Tutorials
CSS Turoials
Let's Make a Layout
Graphics Tutorials
Do's and Don'ts

Bassman Themes

Do's and Don'ts of Webdesign

• Do NOT use any floresent colors for backgrounds.
  No matter who tells you it looks good, it doesn't. It makes people want to claw their eyes out and find where you live and kill you. It's hard on the eyes, and no text will look right on it.
• Do NOT use a computer wallpaper as your background image
  It only looks good if your visitors have the same resolution and the image is faded enough that you can read the text overtop of it. If I have to highlight your text to read your content, I won't stick around to continue viewing your website, I'll move along.
• Do NOT use dark text on dark backgrounds and vise versa.
  It's kinda simple when you think about it, the text can't be read, no one is going to spend the time it takes to highlight it in order to read it... they're just going to leave. So if your background is dark, use a light font. If your background is light, use a dark font.
• Do NOT add as many moving objects as you can to your site
  If all I get when I view your site is something following my cursor, something flashing in my face, another thing blinking slowly in the background and a bunch of cute little animated gifs running all over the place I'm going to leave... a two year old can design that.
• Do NOT use adjustable frames
  As nice as it is to give someone the option of adjusting the frames on the site, you'll ruin the overall look and feel of the site if the frames are moveable.
• Do NOT steal graphics, tutorials, information, etc
  I run a free graphic site, I love letting people use my graphics, I do NOT however enjoy finding them on various other sites in their graphic sections. I'll only ever ask someone to remove it once, after that I report them to their hosting provider. I know other sites out there feel the same way, so lets all be kind, be curtious and be polite. This means don't steal other things too. Learn from people, don't steal from them. It's frustrating.
• Do NOT use marquee's all over the place
  Currently I have not put up a tutorial for a marquee, while I think they are good for scrolling news and such I find a lot of people just stick moving text all over the place, and ruin the look of their sites. When I have to sit there and wait for the text to scroll to me to read it, or I have to read like I'm a speed demon hyped up on extra sugar, I'm not going to stick around and try and read it.
• Do NOT trying to make your links so fancy that they take load times
  The latest craze on the web is making the links fancy, so they really stand out... well that's great and I love some of those effects, but lets not make them that they have to load, I'm not going to sit there and wait for it to load. Fancy links good, fancy links and long load times... bad.
• Do NOT make your links expand to the point where they stretch your layout
  Bad design steps in when you hover over something and the hover properties make the link get bigger, moving the design. I did this once, big mistake, and I corrected it right away. It destroys the look and feel of the site if the links move the site everytime you hover over them.
• Do NOT cramp everything into one section.
  The more and more I browse the web I'm finding more and more people cramping as much as they can into a little corner, sticking the biggest picture they can over the top and putting nothing below it. Tacky and bad design steps in when all your attention goes to one little corner of the site.
• Do NOT center your Layout around the pretty pictures
  So many sites out there DO THIS. It's annoying to go to a site and find nothing but the pretty pictures. Content is number one, pretty little designs is nothing in comparison. -Aaron
  I spend hours at sites that have little to no graphic touch, is legible and has tons of content, I spend seconds at a graphic pretty site that has nothing on it.
• Do NOT have falling items over any pages with Content
  I don't remember how many times I've seen this and how many times I've wanted to strangle the person. This is NOT good design, it does NOT look pretty. It's GREAT for a splash page, and it's great for intro pages... but NOT for content pages. If there is crap falling all over the place, I'm more likely to try and find a way to kill it rather than view your site.
• Do NOT use a splash page if you do not need one
  Do you know the purpose of a splash page? It's to welcome someone to the site, and is used to warn someone before they enter something as to what they are going to expect. If the site is made for certain screen resolutions or you have a screen resolution option, then you should use a splash page to introduce your users. If the site is the same all around, then you don't need it, you can put the "Best viewed in and at" on the bottom of the page, if the person can't see the page, then they can't see the page. Splash pages do NOT welcome repeat users... they turn them away.
• Do NOT make a site for the highest resolution possible
  While your resolution might be on the maximum resolution, the rest of the internet might not be. I'm on 1024x768 but ALL my sites are viewable on 800x600 as that is still the most commonly found resolution. When it steps up to 1024x768, my layouts will more than likely be fit to that resolution. It's best to try and stick to accepting the 800x600 user as side scrollbars don't look pretty.
• Do NOT hide the scrollbars when something is meant to scroll
  We're just getting out of, and yet coming back into the hiding scrollbars. It's great to be able to change their appearance, but do NOT hide them in the layout. If I have to search for the little arrows to scroll I'm going to move on... I have a wheely mouse... but at work I don't, and I don't want to have to click all the way to the bottom to find what I'm looking for. I want to be able to pull the scroll bar down. (I've been guilty of this one once or twice)
• Do NOT use MASSIVE text sizes and type in ALL CAPS.
  I use caps to stress a point, I do NOT use caps for all my sentances... it's call yelling on the internet, and quite frankly... looks terrible. The massive text sizes, well it's ugly. The bigger the text the more it looks like a child made the site. We're not blind.
• Do NOT make a website forums JUST to be an Admin
  No one will join. -_-;;
• Do NOT admin all your friends on your forums
  When the admin/user ration is 10/1 in favor of admins the user might as well be in charge.

So now then, we know what not to do, lets move onto what we SHOULD do.

• Do fill your site full of content
  The more content you have, the better your site will survive. I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a MASS of sites comming online and only the ones with the content are going to survive. I can make something look pretty but to add to it, takes time. Don't have the time? Don't make a site.
• Do take pride in your work
  Whatever it is you do for your site, take pride in it. Work hard, and make sure you put lots of time into it. If you just slap stuff up in order to have something there, stop. It's a waste of time and space.
• Do create interactive ideas
  Interaction on the web will ALWAYS create repeat users. There would be no point in being online if all that you could do was pick up information and talk to people. If your friends weren't online you would grow bored fast. So create things for people to do, they'll come back that way.(Unless of course your site is FULL of information)
• Do make your best attempt to make the layout multi browser capable
  I'm very guilty of not being able to do this one. Mozilla is my downfall, as it doesn't read CSS as well as IE and Netscape do. So I often change the layout and forget about the Mozilla factor... I'm always looking for help in fixing it <3 And Really it's not necessary if you're running a graphic site, but if it's an information site and such it's kind of important.
• Do make yourself contactable
  You're not a mysterious web spy... if you're not contactable... people will assume you don't care about your website, you just threw it up because you were bored and aren't likely to update it, or take visitor suggestions.
• Do link to other people
  If you link to other people, they'll likely link to you. It's a fair world out there, somewhere right?
• Do give credit
  IF someone helped you along the way, give them credit. It erks me to see a site where a person has no credits... it's like saying "I did this all myself" When half of it is user submitted, maybe it's stolen?