Web-site check lists

1. Web-site check lists

2. Site Planning Checklist • Visit similar sites to see what you like and don't like, and figure out how you can make your site unique. • Affirm that your site specifies who you are and your organization's identity. • Pick colors that evoke an appropriate emotion for your site. Ensure that your color scheme presents a clear contrast for easy reading, analyze whether the colors work to further your site's goals, and try to use colors from the 216 universal Web-safe palette. • Verify that the main point of your site is clearly identified up front, not buried a page or two deep into your site. You don't want readers to visit your home page and wonder what they're supposed to do now that they've found your Web site. • Classify your site to yourself so that you don't lose your focus. For design purposes, label your site as commercial, informational, educational, entertainment, navigation, community, artistic, or personal or as some other type of site.

3. Design the site to reflect how users will most likely navigate through your pages. Make sure that you include main topics on your home page, and then provide more specific links on each subpage. For example, provide a Contacts link on the home page, and provide departmental links on the Contacts page. • Affirm that your site offers viewers a few ways in which they can contact you—physical address, e-mail address, phone number and so forth. • Name your files appropriately. • Create easy-to-understand button names that clearly reflect your site's structure. Cryptic buttons might look great, but they tend to confuse readers. • Divide your content into logical units. Don't divide a page into two just because it seems like the page is getting too long. On the other hand, if you see a logical break in a long page, by all means, divide the page.

4. Analyze your information, and make your most important information the most accessible. • Determine ways in which you can create a unifying look or theme throughout your site. Don't forget to include a logo and use consistent navigation links on every page. • Include at least one element that will encourage users to return, such as a daily or weekly updated element or a chat room. • Try This! Quick—think of three sites you've visited recently. Now analyze why those three sites made an impression on you. Are there any elements you can adopt and modify for your site? Were those sites easy to navigate? Does an element that you didn't like stand out in your mind? Use your personal experience to your benefit. After all, you know what you like when you're surfing the Web.

5. Home Page Planning Checklist • Creation or revision date • Easily identified and consistently displayed navigation links or buttons • Home page icon that can be used throughout the site • Important information displayed above the fold • Informative title • Intentional emotional effect or theme created via words, colors, layout, font, and so forth • Logo or other identifying graphic, such as a family crest or departmental code

6. Opening page "hook" to catch viewer's interest (Home pages generally vary at least slightly from subpages.) • Quick loading approach (gigantic images make extremely poor backgrounds, and you really don't need to show 90 pictures on your home page.) • Site's purpose is clear and viewers know what steps they can take next • Subheadings break up long text (if necessary) • Text links display along the bottom of the page • Upper-left corner is put to good use, preferably with your logo • Your identity or your organization's identity

7. Writing Web Text Checklist • Introduce one idea per paragraph. • Keep sentences short. • Use simple sentence structures. Avoid compound sentences and unnecessary subordinate clauses. • Think how you can highlight keywords later during the design phase (such as by inserting hyperlinks or using color or typeface variations). • Aim to limit paragraphs to approximately 75 words or fewer, if possible. • Use bulleted lists whenever possible. • Use numbered lists only when you’re presenting a series of steps. • Insert headings and subheadings to break up text and highlight key points. • Keep headlines simple and direct; choose meaningful over clever wording.

8. Ensure that the hierarchy of the headings is clear, both editorially and visually. In other words, make sure your main headings follow a logical system of subordination and are displayed uniquely, such as by formatting main headings larger than subheadings or differentiating them by color or typeface. • Separate paragraphs within a section by using white space (space without any content, either textual or graphical). • Avoid having too many hyperlinks in body text. Don't embed hyperlinks within paragraphs unless the hyperlinks add extremely pertinent information to your content and you're sure readers will return to your page after clicking the embedded link.

9. Supplies Checklist Before you start to create your Web pages, you should have the following elements on hand and easily accessible—or at least in the process of being finalized. • Text, edited and proofread • Photographs, graphics, and illustrations (including buttons, title bars, and a high-quality logo) • Page sketches and templates • HTML editor, text editor, or Web page creation tool • Graphics program • Domain name, if desired • Server space

10. Post-Upload Checklist After you upload a Web page to your server, perform the following checks: • Ensure that all images display properly in various screen resolutions and window sizes. • Click your links to ensure that they work, including the buttons on your navigation bar, linked logo graphics, text links, and image maps. • Verify whether the page and its elements fit within the standard browser window. Remember—users report that having to scroll left and right to view a Web page is highly annoying. • Complete and submit a test form to yourself if your site uses forms. • Read each page title in the title bar for accuracy. • Verify that text and text links are easy to read against the Web pages' backgrounds.