Layout

All of your planning, research, organising and writing comes together when you start to layout your pages. If you haven't already done this, sketch your webpages on paper. Draw boxes where the text should go and coloured areas for images and navigation. Once you've made a sketch, you might find it easier to make a mock-up of your pages in an image editor. Remember though that not everything you can do in a graphics program is possible with HTML.

Try lots of things out and see how well they work. Here are some guidelines to help you get started.

Less is more

The key to good design is to keep things simple.

You want to make some things stand out, but don't make everything scream for attention! If you make everything bold, then nothing will stand out. You need a certain amount of contrast to make your page look interesting.

Go easy on the fonts! Use just two or three - any more and your page will start to look busy and confusing. It's the same with colours. If everything on your page is in different colours, it's hard to make certain things stand out.

Make some space

Sometimes it's not what you put on your page, it's what you leave out that matters. In design-speak, white space is the part of your page that doesn't have any content. That doesn't mean it's not important. White space guides your eye from one point to another and gives 'breathing room' to your design.

So step back and take a good look at your design - sometimes a bit of space is all you need. Concentrate on drawing attention to the important parts of your page.

Lay it out

Think about the design of your favourite magazine - it has columns to lay out text, and blocks of colour to make things stand out. Pull out certain bits of text, like quotes or interesting facts. They will help to break up big blocks of text.

Easy on the eyes

Now that you've written your content, you want people to read it. Make life easy for your readers by choosing your background and text colours carefully. Use a light coloured background with dark text, or a dark coloured background with light text. Avoid clashing colours and complicated backgrounds.

Keep your text to a size that is easy to read - too small and people will squint, too large and people may feel they are being shouted at. Go easy on words in capital letters - you will look as though you are SHOUTING!

Left-aligned text is easy to read - keep centred text for headlines or small amounts of text.

• Use bulleted lists to
• draw attention to
• important points

Be consistent

Decide on a style for your website and use this style throughout. Make sure the page headings and navigation can be found in the same place on every page. Use the same fonts, colours and layout. Being consistent will help your users to know where they are in your site and feel comfortable finding their way around.