Typography
Design
Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-design/
Common Design Problems
Problem 1. Anonymous pages - no author; no sense of place, no audience, no purpose (a.k.a. "Pages about nothing by no one for nobody")
Towards a solution:
Mainly, of course, rethink your goals and ask yourself if each page contributes towards them. Other, smaller things to consider might include these:
1. Use photos, particularly of anything that your site represents.
2. Use first or second person language.
Good: NVCC-Alexandria Bad: GMU
3. Decide on what you want your audience to do.
Good: NARAL Bad: National Right to Life Committee
4. Give your readers something to do
See my pages on engagement and interactivity for some ideas
Problem 2: Dull, drab, boring pages
Towards a solution
Avoid anonymity - see Problem 1 above.
Specify colors in your HTML - see my templates and color combinations for ideas. A couple of examples are also on my graphics mentoring page and New Horizons Conference site.
Get thee some clip art - I have a small page of links to begin with.
Problem 3: Screwy alignment
Top causes of jagged/oddball alignment:
1. Failure to lay out page in tables
2. Too much use of a WYSIWYG editor without looking at the codes the editor produces
3. Conversion of documents from a word processor
Coming...
3. Off the border
4. Uneven tables
5. Poor navigation
6. Poor text formatting
10. Browser/platform blowups