designing pages
Design is a major issue on the Web; writing text is part of the larger process of putting together an integrated site that is easy for your audience to use, reflects the purpose that you've set out to accomplish, and looks good.
The sites listed here will give you some concrete information and advice about design. In addition, there are sites that provide free images and color palettes, as well as other Web designer resources. The one thing this page doesn't provide, however, is examples of well-designed sites; for that, you can see the gallery.
tips and tutorials
- Do's and Don't's of Web Design from SpiderPro
- Digital Thread with a variety of design resources
- Evolt.org: a large, eclectic site with lots of good information on a variety of Web-related issues.
audience and usability
- Some statistics about Web use
- Discussion of designing for new users from Digital Web magazine
- Microsoft's usability research section
- Usable Web: a central repository for information about usability
- Usability information from Webword.com
- Jakob Nielsen's Usability Heuristics for checking your site's usability
- Lots of information about information architecture from Peter Morville, who's written a couple of books on the subject
color and type
- Tutorial on Web Typography from Webmonkey (the tutorial section of HotWired)
- Color Matters: a huge site all about color and design
- Techniques and Tools for Using Color in Computer Interface Design from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
- Death of the Web Safe Color Palette? also from Webmonkey
- More on the Web Safe Palette from Digital Web
- The Color Mixer, which allows you to dither two colors and produce a third
- Lynda.com Lynda Weinman's site has the Web safe colors arranged by hue, value, etc. You can download the color chart as a gif graphic (hold your mouse button down on the color chart itself).
- Dot Paragon. Here you can look at the hexadecimals arranged by shades (i.e., reds, purples, etc.)
- The "Palette Man" site for help in choosing a color palette for your site
images and other freebies
- The Smithsonian Institution's Office of Imaging and Photographic Services
- The Copyright-Free PhotoArchive
- FreeImages.com: free and royalty-free images
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Copyright-free photographs of ocean (and other) phenomena
- National Fish and Wildlife Service More copyright-free art, photos and drawings of animals.
- NASA on the Web, a linked list of Web-based resources available through NASA
general information
- Web Designers' Virtual Library. Whatever you want to know about Web stuff, they'll be glad to tell you.
- CNET. You've seen the ads; now visit the site. Lots of software and hardware reviews, along with tutorials and discussions.
- ZDNet. Another mammoth site, this time from Ziff Davis publishing, a major publisher of Web and computer books.
- Webopedia. Ever wonder what on earth XML is? This dictionary of computer/Web/Internet terminology will be happy to tell you.
- Web Master Resources Links to every Web freebie you can imagine.
- Web Page Design for Designers On-line magazine for Web designers; lots of links from designers themselves.