Web Page Ethiopia

Once you’ve identified the basic page requirements, you can begin to brainstorm various layouts. You should always take a look at other page layouts before developing you own. Look at other sites on the Web, determine if their layout might be useful, print out the ones that are, and focus on the strengths and weaknesses of each style.
Review your list of elements required for your pages and see how they might fit into different layout. Reviewing different layouts will keep you from getting stuck in a rut and may reveal several layouts that you would not normally have considered.

Page layout techniques
Just where do you put al these elements? When you’ve decided on what to include in your page, and you have the required elements, how do you decide where to put things? This section investigates the development of a page layout. It begins with a quick look at page templates.

Creation of Page Templates
Development of a novel set of page templates can be used to guide the design and provide a flexible framework for future growth. The advantage to this method is that it achieves consistency and long-term time savings.

The disadvantage is the difficulty in achieving appropriately flexible templates for future additions and changes while retaining a unique and aesthetically interesting page.

What Do We Mean By Page Templates?
Using templates doesn’t mean using a preformatted “boilerplate” solution proposed by your favorite WYSIWYG package, but rather establishing a grid or page architecture unique to the site you’re designing.

Nor does this mean that you need to adhere strictly to the established framework. There are times when it makes sense to establish a unique page (e.g., a page illustrating a site map may require slightly different use of screen space than the rest of the site pages).

Why, Then, Would One Want A Template?
A template is useful for maintaining consistency throughout the site. If the navigation is in the same place on the vast majority of pages, the user will expect it there.

Consistency across the pages will facilitate integration of the site structure into the users’ conception (or mental model) of the site. An accurate mental model reduces the cognitive effort required to search and find things within the display.

If each page is unique, the user will need to search for elements within the page, and the cognitive and perceptual strain will be much greater.

The use of a page template allows you to establish a consistent and simple page structure throughout the web site. By reducing clutter and eliminating excessive attention-grabbing elements, you can ensure the user is focused on the critical content areas.

The consistency afforded by a template is useful for both the designer and the programmer. Once a common page structure has been established is easier to implement new pages, and mistakes and inconsistencies are more easily detected.

The sidebar “Attention to Detail” describes another benefit of consistency within a web site.

While page templates have been discussed here, their actual creation often occurs after the mockup stage is completed. However, you’ll want to keep in mind that it is a goal to develop a page that will have consistency and a common layout throughout.

Simplification and Reduction
A major way to improve the usability of your site is to increase the user’s comprehension of the elements and structures contained within the page. This is achieved through simplification of the page structure, and reduction of the elements contained within the site.

Reducing the number of visual vertical lines within your page is one way to simplify the display. Demonstrates the vertical structure of a page and how inconsistencies and excessive arrangements can be simplified.

Limiting your page to four or fewer vertical alignments is a good way to maintain control over the structure, although this is by no means a rule. Remember: If you page seems cluttered and you can’t quite pin down the reasons, it is often due to an excessive number of vertical alignments within the page structure.

Any element that breaks the perceptual boundaries of a page has a strong influence on attention. Reduction of the number of attention-grabbing elements will help to simplify the page for the user while strengthening the focus on the important page elements.

This can be both good and bad. For example, if a fairly static page has new information added to it, you may want to make that information stand out. However, too much of this can contribute to a cluttered page that is difficult to parse.

You should strive to develop a page that has a hierarchy of focused elements throughout the page.

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