Basic Web Design Tips

By Lisa Lopuck

Part of the Web Design For Dummies Cheat Sheet

When designing web pages, you need to think visually. A web site designed with a good balance of graphics and text is pleasing to the eye, attracts viewer attention, and holds it. Good web design relies on the artist — in this case, you — following certain design principles:

Design the web page interface to fit within the first 800 x 600 pixels so that the important content is visible when the page first loads. Although most modern monitors are much larger than this, many people browse the Internet through laptops and devices.
Achieve a balanced layout by designing no more than three focal points: Use the "big, medium, small" strategy.
Avoid using fonts smaller than 10 point (depending on the font).
Use standard computer system fonts for all HTML text, or be sure to embed a specialty font using CSS or other technology.

The following figure puts these principles to practice: