The human mind constantly searches for patterns in everything
that it sees everyday, striving to find the unified picture as a
whole. If the mind cannot find pattern in what it is seeking, it
has a high tendency to look elsewhere.
When doing web design, it is important to design the website in
such a way that makes it easier, not harder for the mind to see
the pattern. It must be clear to a visitor he is still at the
same site.
If objects with similiar functions are grouped together, its
function will be easily understood and remembered. When
designing an interface, it is important that all similiar tools
used for navigation and accessing information should stay
consistent. The webpage font, style, colour, layout, mouse over
effects should also stay consistent. When the user clicks a
link, he must recognize the connecting page is similar to the
previous one, failing to do so will make the user confused and
will prompt him to visit other websites.
If there are sound or animation used in navigation, the sound
and animated effect should stay the same in all pages. For
example, if an animation is turned on by clicking a flash
button, it should be done the same way in the rest of the
webpages.
One method of ensuring consistency is to use Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS). By defining standard style properties in another
document, it is possible to achieve the same look and feel to
all your webpages that use the same style sheet. A style sheet,
for example, can be used to make the text on every page 12 pt
Verdana, all headings (h1) orange..etc. If the style of the site
needs to be changed for any reason, only one document needs to
be updated. Without style sheets, doing manual adjustments on
every page is tedious and often result in errors and
inconsistency.
Another way to promote site consistency is to use templates. A
website template is a document that defines the structure of
muliple pages in your site. For example, if the header and
footer are standard across all pages in your site, they can be
attached to the body of your document via an automated process,
saving you time and typing errors. Many web editing softwares
such as Dreamweaver offer templating function. Server-side
technologies can also do the same job easily.
Consistency is very important in website design because it makes
the reader do less thinking. Time is money. Your reader wants to
find the information he needs quickly. Inconsistency design only
slows down their surfing speed and make them lose interest in
your site easily.
About the author:
Sitecritic.net Website
Reviews is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly
volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a
community of web designers and developers who share the common
interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web
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