| The Basics - Good and bad design practices.
Good and Bad Design: Graphic design professionals have artistic and technical criteria for design. For our purposes, good design is measured in two ways.
1. Your readers - Are your website readers finding the content they want on your website in an attractive and compelling fashion? If so, you have a good design.
2. Is your website designed for search engines to find your content easily. If so, you have a good design.
Study other Webistes: Looking at other websites is one of the best ways to study design. Start looking at websites with a critical eye. See what works and what doesn’t.
Online Design Resources: Visit Vincent Flanders online and his longstanding look at “Web Pages That Suck,” www.webpagesthatsuck.com It’s one of the fastest ways to build your knowledge about website design.
The State of Florida also has a simple and useful section, titled Building Better Websites http://www.state.fl.us/dms/betterwebsites/index.html There’s even a fun “Remodel a Website” exercise for fixing a poorly designed webpage.
The Value of Managing Your Own Content: If you were working with a custom website designer, you’d almost surely be paying $30 to $95 for every change you wanted to make to your site. One of the greatest values of your American Author website is you can keep coming back to your content and improving it. By keeping your eyes open you’ll learn lots about creating an effective website for your book.
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