PC Services

"From Payroll to Body Scanners"

Some PHP Tips and 'Tricks'

Thinking beyond each page and DESIGNING your web site

Bad layout

The biggest mistake is making web pages too long, most users read the top of the page that should tell them about the rest of the page and related sections. Try to split long reports to 'n' items per page, for example this page is one of six that could have been in one long User UnFriendly webpage.

Splitting pages into smaller pages is more likely to save bandwidth and MONEY!. Consider how much information that is displayed on a page is relevant to JUST that section of the website, don't be afraid to split pages as users want to find out information (even to buy products from online catalogues), but they also want to quickly determine that the particular page is NOT what they want as well and move on. Loading shorter pages means only those who need the further details request it and those who don't quickly move on. Thus saving bandwidth and reducing server load.

Don't make reports too wide so they cannot be printed or have to be viewed at very small font size. Not everyone has wide screens.

Wide reports cause other usability problems such as user has to scroll left/right continuously to check what line they are on.

For long reports, repeat column headings of tables so users can be sure which column is what.

Styling issues are also related here (see here), so don't make web pages (or the ubiqutous 'div' usage), use pixel dimensions of the web page area as larger screen resolution and wide screen format means the page is displayed as a smaller size compared to the screen area, making pages unreadable.