Web Site Design

Frames

Nice Idea. But often badly used. Frames should really only be used for links, and be on the right or left side. Top and bottom are really no goes. If at the bottom then people will not look any further down. And a lot of sites place the adverts at the top. So people tend to ignore the top as well. The other main problem with Frames is that not all browsers can use them. So do you really want to stop people looking at your site? To get around this the first (index) page will have a selection, Frames or No Frames. Now you have to design 2 pages for each normal (one) page. Is this a good use of your time? I think not.

Flash

Great, fabulous idea. But only if the whole world has broadband (it won't for a long time), and the Flash was really good (never is). Be honest, when you have been to a site that has a Flash Intro how many time have you clicked on the "Skip Intro" button. And if there isn't one, haven't you opened another browser window and surfed elsewhere until the intro had finished. I do. Flash seems to have 3 main purposes.
1) Cartoons that you can laugh at.
2) Games. Or games combined with cartoons.
3) Training or informing.

The rest, well people seem to ignore them.

CSS Style

Now, if used properly ties the whole site together. Gives it consistency and balance, and is very helpful to the web designer to keep things consistant. This site does not use it. Why you ask, when I started CSS Style was just starting and I had no idea how to use it. However I now know what to do so eventually the site should be CSS Style enabled.

Pictures

Always do thumbnails first and allow the surfer to get the "big" picture if they want later on. Where a picture is also a link, supply the link in the ALT part of the HTML. Bewrae of too many moving GIF's, they can be distracting. And although JPG's can degrade if saved too many times, they are still quicker for a surfer to download than a BMP.

Blink

Whoever had the mad idea to let designers have words flash on and off should be taken into a quiet room and left.
It is only used in some forms of Netscape and was probably intended for emergency use only. If you are using it
you had better have a good reason ready for Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.

Colours/Colors

Back in the days of writing code on paper, IBM and ICL (now part of Fujitsu) had people looking into the best colours for coders to use so as not to strain their eyes.
IBM came up with a light green whilst ICL came up with light brown, whilst books still use black on white.

So why do some sites choose the following

Unless of course you don't want people to look at your site as it might take up too much band width.

I have choosen CornSilk (#FFF8DC) as it is less glaring the white.

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