Things to Consider in Web Design

Within our society, varying modes of communication exist to provide creative avenues to effectively communicate an idea or piece of information to an audience, in the most logical and accessible manner. As theorised by Kress and Van Leeuwen, different ‘kinds of texts are no longer just written, but 'designed', and multimodally articulated’ (1998). This idea proposes that the presentation of a text is concerned with not only content, but with layout and the visual arrangement of the document, and how this enables the reader to successfully absorb the information.

Reep builds on this idea by claiming your audience reads the presentation of your document as much as the printed text itself (2006). Just as the arrangement and presentation of relevant text can foster effective communication, presented poorly can have equally negative consequences on the transmission of your message to a reader.

Such factors must be considered when designing for both online and printed documents. While the importance of relevant and direct content must be considered in both forms, layout is especially important for web documents. The nature of web documents is that they are heavily connected to other sources and links on the internet. Meaning, someone may unintentionally come across your document or site while ‘web browsing’.

This is less common in printed documents, as they must be physically bound together in a book or magazine for example, for someone to unintentionally come across them. Printed documents are more commonly books searched for in a library, or newspapers and magazines bought for a specific purpose. The act of reading a printed document is much more intentional and planned by the reader.

In this way, web documents must be eye catching. The layout should be easy to follow; simple yet grabs the reader’s attention. Additionally, links and tabs must be easily located and relevant to the content of the document, meaning they must compliment and reinforce what is being said.

Some other tips for designing for web documents include:

• Stick to single column layouts – don’t make readers scroll up and down continuously!
• Use shorter line lengths and wide margins on your page – keeps text succinct and easy to follow.
• Use page breaks and paragraph spacing.
• Use sub-heads and sidebars for manageable sized blocks of text – also lets readers know where they are at when they cannot see the entire document in one screen without scrolling.
• Use contrast in headings, subheads, titles and bylines – bold, italics, larger fonts and contrasting fonts all signify importance and stand out from regular body text.
• Use colour appropriately.
• Keep images and backgrounds relevant – they should compliment your text not overwhelm it!

Image Sources:

<http://infotechworld.net/services/web-design/>

<http://www.bridewelldesign.com/blog/?attachment_id=29>

References:

Kress, G & Van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’ in Bell, A & Garrett, P (eds), Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford, Chapter 7, pp. 186-219.

Parker, R.C 2003, Looking Good in Print, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale.

Reep, D.C 2006, Technical writing: principles, strategies and readings, Pearson/Longman, New York.