Website designers and designing

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How many times have you gone to a site someone ...
only to have ittake ... to load? You had been told it was a great site.
But how long are yougoing to wait for fancy ... 300 d How many times have you gone to a site someone recommended, only to have ittake "forever" to load? You had been told it was a great site.
But how long are yougoing to wait for fancy backgrounds, 300 dpi jpegs, or animated gifs to load ontoyour browser? Web designers are sometimes entranced by the bells and whistles. "Add sound[animations, photos, you name it] to your site" sounds nice, but the wav.
files andlarge filesizes are tedious to load, and the consumer is in a hurry to find what he orshe is looking for. Fancy pictures don't matter in the long run unless it's a "you haveto see it to decide whether to buy" issue, and banners (although nice) take longer toload than text links.Two banners per page is the maximum I'd recommend.
If you must have photos (oneof my sites must) then two or three photos per page are all that most people'sbrowsers can handle without slowing down page loading. Frames slow it down evenmore.
Besides, some people have "disabled" frames on their browser preferencesbecause they take too long to load. My philosophy is this: if you have a lot of material on your web pages, even thoughyour business is great and you have a great product/service, you'll drive customersaway rather than attract them.
The internet set is very impatient. They'll go on to thenext selection on the search engine results.
You'll be left by the phone or yourcomputer screen wondering why someone hasn't called or emailed. If you are looking for a web designer, choose one that offers simple graphics andbackgrounds and recommends small file sizes, is up front about cost and timeinvolved, and suits your website to the needs you have.
For example: if you arelooking to have someone design a personal site, then it's fine to have a few photos, aguestbook, perhaps an e-card service on your site. But if you want to sell something- it makes more sense to give your potential customers the information they want asquickly as possible, without all the extraneous trappings I've already mentioned.If you think you have the time to learn how to design your own website, I have goodnews for you.
Forgive me "plugging" someone else's business, but I've neverregretted the time I've spent on this site: http://www.victoriaring.com . Check it outfor some really great FREE tutorials on web design.
Victoria teaches with NetscapeComposer (part of Communicator 4.7 and downloadable free), but if you want touse another type of web design interface (such as FrontPage by Microsoft, or evenAdobe) she has suggestions on her site as to where you can find good tutorials oncreating websites with these applications as well. There's even a section where youcan download some free backgrounds and gifs for your site.If you already have a web site up and running, please do yourself a favor and visit itonce in a while.
Pretend you're a customer looking for a certain type of product. Tryevery single one of the links to make sure they work.
Can you get to the homepagefrom every page? Can you get to the order form, from anywhere on your site? Doyou have a section on shipping and handling charges (if any apply)? Does your cgi --if you used interactive forms -- work? (i.e., can you submit a sample order toyourself from the site and have it go through to your email?). Can customers emailyou with questions? These are but a few considerations when either choosing a web designer ORdesigning your own site.
There are any number of other considerations. For now,I've just looked at the option of either designing your own site, or finding a websitedesigner to do it for you.
Thanks for reading my short opinion/article. I hope it's been helpful.
Next time Imight explore the issue of merchant accounts and shipping and handling charges. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .