Dee Calder Website

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• Design Theory

Layouts

A lot of time and aggravation can be saved by planning site design and layout prior to coding HTML and CSS.  Sketch a mock-up first on paper or in Photoshop.

Maintain consistency in page layout and design to ensure a positive user experience. The user should be able to move through site pages without getting lost or confused. If all the pages have a different look, or the navigation is in a different place on each page, it might frustrate the user.  The use of templates in Dreamweaver is a nice, convenient way of enforcing a consistent design.  Also, while highly subjective, it’s important to reduce clutter and ‘busyness’ in web page layout.
Finally, certain trends from the web’s earlier days should be avoided.  Frames are an obvious example.  Also, with CSS and other web design enhancements, the once common use of tables has significantly diminished.