Tufts University: Child and Family Webguide
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 Guide to Web Design

How to Design an Effective Site about Infants, Children, and Teens

 

Whether you are looking to increase the amount of visitors to your site or make your site more credible in the field, this Web Design Guide will help you. By adhering to some easy website design criteria, you will learn how to attract a broader spectrum of visitors, encourage existing visitors to return more frequently, influence visitors to read more information, and establish reliance and trust. The Design Guide explains best practices from our experience and research in WebGuide evaluations, web preferences of parent audiences, search engine optimization, and academic librarians’ research.

 

 

 

Elements of Good Website Design

 

Consider these five areas when designing your site.  Access the complete guide for any one of these areas by clicking on the link tab:

 

 

Establish the trustworthiness of your site Establish site trustworthiness through certain qualifications


        Include information about the sponsorship of the

site

        Present the qualifications of individuals who run

the site and/or author the content

        Provide evidence of regular maintenance

Present credible contentPresent website credibility and research references.


        Include references for original material

        List a full citation for other material

Present content in user-friendly fashion Focus on user-friendly web design


        Maintain a well-organized, visually appealing,

and easy to navigate site

        Enhance readability using clear and coherent

language

        Layer content with easier, shorter material first

Incorporate unique web characteristics Incorporate structure characteristics, such as web site linking.


        Use links within your site to lead viewers from

simple or summarized content to more in-depth

material

        Employ links to move viewers around your site to

references or related material

Allow search engines to easily locate your siteSearch engine optimization for your website


        Select 2-3 popular keywords and phrases for

each page

        Incorporate keywords in your web pages

        Utilize a tool like Wordtracker or the WebGuide

Thesaurus of Common Keywords to identify key

words for your topics