Checklist for Website Design

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Overview
Website evaluations include a review of the site against the Checklist for Website Design. You may improve your site at home using an abbreviated version of the Checklist below. If you are interested in a more comprehensive review, contact Fastabend for more information.

Site Basics

Home Page:

___	Content should be supported by citing authority, respected companies, long history, awards, consumer satisfaction surveys, and testimonials. Advertising principles that employ influence are available from Advertising Principles.com by J. Scott Armstrong.
___	The links on the home page point inward and provide access to key pages.
___	Do not use a splash page. A classic example is found on Neil French's site.

Page Titles:

___	Make each page title unique. On this page, you see "Checklist for Website Design" on the top of your screen. If you are writing your page in html, the code would resemble this.
___	Make each page title short but descriptive.

Screen Layout:

___	Key information should be found on the upper left side of the page.
___	Make the information flow from left to right, top to bottom for sites written in English. Other languages flow right to left, top to bottom. Sites written in those languages should follow that system.
___	Use cues for grouping such as position, shapes, spaces, lines, or color. If using color make sure to use a color from the web color palette (also referred to as web safe). The web color (web safe) palette ensures that your color and images will appear consistent regardless of the user’s browser or color settings.
___	Use the same layout throughout the site
___	Horizontal scrolling should not be need to view information. If you are having trouble removing the horizontal scrollbar. Take advantage of the free tutorial provided by Macromedia.
___	Do not write on wallpaper.
___	Use tables to organize screen layout. Tables ensure the website appears consistently on different size screens. More information regarding designing webpages with tables is available from Macromedia.

Text Presentation:

___	Set body text is Serif font such as Georgia, Verdana, Arial, or Helvetica.
___	Use Times New Roman if viewer is expected to print out page.
___	Left Justify text and subtitles.
___	Never underline non-hyperlinked text.
___	Do not abbreviate dates. There are different abbreviation conventions throughout the world. December 5, 1999 in the United States may appear as 12/05/1999, but site visitors from other countries will read it as May 12, 1999.

Navigation:

___	Make each page a potential entry page. Visitors may enter on any page of your site from an outside link.
___	Use same navigation bar throughout the site. The navigation bar should be consistent so users may easily find the link they need. If your navigation bar adjusts to each page, the user must take more time to scan for their desired link.
___	Place navigation bar on top or on the left side of the page.
___	Put home page link at left-most or top of navigation bar.
___	Allow user to go back or retrace steps.

Reduce Uncertainty in Navigation:

___	Inform users about download times (especially if long). If it is simply a link to a downloadable file provide a time estimate based on connection speed. If the page itself loads slowly consider including a preloader.
___	Indicate visited links. Most sites change the color of the link to indicate visited links. A common standard used by many sites is purple to indicate visited links.

Resolution-Independent Design:

___	Define sizes according to small, medium, large so users may tailor it to their preferences.
___	Provide users with low-bandwidth an alternative site. Dial-up represents 62.8% of the home internet connections according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Color:

___	Provide good color contrast for text. The best color contrast is black or blue text on a white background.

Help:

___	Provide a link to help.
___	Provide help automatically when appropriate. An appropriate time to provide help could include an invalid search request or an incorrectly completing a form.
___	Avoid criticizing user.

Catalogue:

___	Allow for ability to search the catalogue. Amazon and other successful retailers offer this feature.
___	Provide independent product reviews. An excellent example of this is found on Drugstore.com.
___	Offer multiple payment methods . Not everyone has an American Express, Visa, or Mastercard. It is important to be able to support not only major credit cards, but paypal and other alternatives such as mailing in payment by check.

Advertising on Site:

___	Advertising on site should be related to content. If you plan to include advertising, consider Google Adsense. Targeted ads will be delivered on your site that follow these web design principles.
___	Advertising should be limited to avoid slowing down download time of site.

Search:

___	Locate site search consistently on each page. Most users expect to find the search object in the upper center or upper right of the page according to SURL.
___	Allow search to be expanded. Give the user the ability to search within the site or on the world wide net similar to CNN.com. There are a variety of resources available on the internet that provided free code to create your site's search engine.
___	Highlight the relevant search item in the source. This follows the principle of writing for the internet. Highlighting the relevant search terms assists the reader in quickly scanning the page for the necessary information.

Music:

___	Avoid music unless it is highly related to the product or attempting to use distraction (provide user with an option to turn it off).

Physical Effort:

___	Major tasks should require the minimal number of clicks. Ideal number of clicks is 3 or less. The maximum acceptable number is 6.
___	Shorten mouse travel. This is especially important for users with special needs or elderly users.
___	Use a large target for mouse. In some cases consider making a larger image the target such as the Fastabend logo in the corner.

If you have any questions regarding this checklist please contact Sarah Fastabend or fill out the application to have Fastabend evaluate your site using the full checklist and user testing.