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IS_YOUR_WEB_SITE_UNFRIENDLY_Part_7_of_9
| IS YOUR WEB SITE UNFRIENDLY? Part 7 of 9
The following tips will help make sure you don't inadvertently
make your page, or part of your page, invisible to visitors:
1. If you use a textured background GIF make sure you also
specify a background colour that is similar to the main colour
in the GIF or your text could be unreadable to someone browsing
with text-only. Believe it or not, I have found myself trying to
read white text on my browser's default light background! The
fact that I had specified a default background colour rather
than white was the only way I realised there WAS something there
to read.
2. If your background texture/colour is dark, use a light text
to create enough contrast to make it easy to read. If the
background texture/colour is light, use a dark text.
3. Keep your use of the brighter colours to a minimum:
fluorescent green or yellow text on black, for instance, is very
hard on the eyes. If you favour a black background, use such
effects sparingly--say to draw attention to your email address.
Bright coloured backgrounds are also hard on the eyes--not to
mention the fact that finding a good contrasting text colour
(apart from black or white) is almost impossible because bright
colours are often neither dark nor light.
4. Preferably use the same background texture/colour on all your
pages as it gives a more unified feel and appearance to your
site. However, if your chosen colours clash badly with, say, the
colours in an important graphic or photo on one particular page,
by all means change the background for that one page.
5. If you change the link colours from their default settings
(for instance, the green and blue of Internet Explorer and the
green and purple of Netscape Navigator) because they clash with
your chosen colour scheme, then keep these link colours
consistent throughout your site or visitors will have trouble
working out which links they have been to and which they
haven't. If you've used colour to enliven your text in other
places, they may even have trouble working out what's a link and
what isn't.
6. Don't specify the same colour for visited links as for
unvisited ones: this will confuse visitors just as much as using
different link colours on each page.
About the author:
Laraine Anne Barker writes fantasy for young people. Visit her
web site at http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz for FREE stories and
novel excerpts. Sign up for the NOVELLA OF THE MONTH CLUB,
absolutely FREE!
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