To create a quality, professional, and well-designed Web site. Several vital elements muse be needed. As the main purpose of a web site is to delivery content. Quality design enhances your content. Poor design gets in the way. The following guidelines will give out a review of a well-designed web page.

Priority One: Can't live without them

1. Use black text on a white background
   If you must use a color stick to pastels. Patterned backgrounds always make text harder to read. Background images can be exciting, but they are an advanced design concept, and can easily be very distracting. Black background pages might not print.
2. Remember the three C's of the Web: content, customers, and consistency
   Content really drives the Web. Make design decisions that improve the presentation of the content. Know your customers. Build community between customers when possible.
3. Put a toolbar on every page
   Use text tool bars to make sure the user can't get lost while navigating your Web site, and get the additional benefit that people who are handicapped or who have images turned off can still navigate your site.
4. Decoration is not design
   Putting cool graphics on a page is not the same as creating a well designed page. Only use graphics that make a contribution to your content, or add to the professional appearance.
5. More whitespace makes a page more elegant and less energetic
   Whitespace in design terms is blank areas of the page. Pages with larger amounts of whitespace are easier to digest, and have a slower more deliberate feel. This is good for first time visitors, but can be frustrating to repeat visitors.

Priority Two: Also vital...

1. Organize your content by creating a site map before you build your site
   Quality content makes a great Web site. Part of that quality is that the content is organized carefully in a way that everyone will understand. Break topics into Web page sized pieces, and link the pieces together in a logical (and simple) manner.
2. Include contextual feedback where possible
3. Underlining is only for hyperlinks
4. Avoid: Frames
   Their utility is dubious at best. They are an advanced design feature. Frames have very serious problems, including an inability of many search engines to index a frame site, and your customers can't bookmark pages within your site. For more information, visit our Problems with Frames page.
5. Create a design that has multiple ways to navigate your site
    
6. Consider the density of your links and toolbars vs. the number of mouse clicks to reach a given page (try for a 2-click rule).
   You want users to be able to quickly get to any page of your site, but be careful not to overwhelm people with a 'wall of text'.
7. Customers should not be surprised by what happens when they click the mouse
   Actively avoid anything mysterious. A good user interface has obvious functionality.
8. Register with search engines
   Add your URL to Yahoo manually, then use the free service at Submit-it or Postmaster to register with 5 or 10 most popular search engines. Be sure to include AltaVista (www.altavista.digital.com).

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