Terrestrial Concepts creates web sites - why would you ever come here to learn about making your own sites when we want to sell you one that we design? It seems strange, but we are offering this little tutorial because we want to help the web. The net is full of so much junk that we thought it would be nice to give some people some tips on how to make a good site. If you have any comments or advice you would like to add, mail us! Here goes:

EFFECTIVE WEB SITE DESIGN

A good web site needs to convey information. Sometimes (though rarely), a site has beautiful navigation and graphics, but it tells the consumer nothing. Many major corporations have done this. The opposite extreme is when the user is bombarded with way to much information, which scares them away. Often people are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content on some websites, especially news sites. For these sites, effective navigtion is the key. Important information should be reachable within three mouse clicks. A search function is a must on huge corporate or information sites. Interactive content should often times be avoided on the main page because it only adds distraction. However, if you have a site like this, it is unlikely that you will be taking the time to read our descriptions. Therefore, let's more on to smaller sites.

It is scary. Some studies of raw data and network usage logs show that in many instances, people don't care about information. This is important for smaller sites to realize. With large sites, you come for the information. With smaller sites, you need to be impressed.

On the internet, everyone is impatient. They want the coolest looking site to load in a few seconds and they want to immediately be able to click through to another page. Navigation must be prominant, and the first thing to load on the page. This means making the navigation the first thing on the page. If a site uses advertising, it is helpful to have ads nested in the navigation or between information, so that people cannot avoid them and have to see them every time they click to go somewhere. For small business or organization sites, navigation must be clean, simple, and fast loading. For example, on this page, the first graphic to load on top is the site title and the navigation. The next picture down is this section's navigation. On most of our pages, those are the only pictures shown. Remember, the reader does not want to be overwhelmed. Graphics should be used effectively and SPARINGLY! Most people don't realize that someone surfing at 28.8 or even 56k don't recieve the pages as fast as a web designer does when accessing them directly off her hard drive. It is important to check a web page by clearing the browser's cache and then loading it off the web to see how long it takes. A typical page should take no longer than ten seconds to load.

I hope that wasn't too scattered for you to follow. To learn more about building the web, click on one of the links below or in the nice picture at the top of the page (they are the same links).