1. Consistency

Every element of a website has a purpose and when designing a website you need to ensure that you use those elements consistently. For example, if a font appears on a page and is blue, the chances are that people will try to click it. If it’s blue and underlined, almost everybody will try to click it.

It’s vital when designing websites that we use consistent rules throughout the site and adhere to the commonly understood rules of the web.

2. Contrast

Since we can appreciate that people use different technology (computers, iPads, BlackBerries, phones) to connect to our websites, we should appreciate that they need to know the difference between our content types. Headers must be in contrast to body text, footers and less important text should be less significant both visually and structurally.

3. Positioning

Regardless of where you choose to place items such as menus, they must remain there throughout the website. With that said, some things have specific homes on a page. For example, legal and privacy links should almost always appear at the bottom of the document, while navigation should appear at the top. Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter where they appear visually, but structurally (within the code), navigation is at the start of a document while notes are at the bottom.

4. Alignment

I’ve always appreciated the advice that people need to know that you’ve meant to centre things if you’re going to centre them. That’s true for all alignment issues. Take the time to centre text, but ensure there’s a reason. Treat alignment as a structural element, align things as if you’re adding something to the sentence.

5. Interactivity

Finally, the web offers designers the ability to add interactivity to documents. Being able to link between pages and documents is critical to a successful webpage, once you’ve written a document take the time to review it and see if there are any links to similar documents you should be linking to so that you can help the reader find what they’re looking for.