Web design tips and articles from 'Eye for Information'

Feedback is very welcome: you can email me at lois@lois.co.uk, or find me in the  Desktop Publishing forum.

• NEW : Designing an arts or photography web site. Six key points to follow when making a site to showcase your art or photos.
• A primer on web site accessibility. Simple practical tips for those getting started on this increasingly important aspect of designing a successful web site.
• My tips on web site marketing - the basics. There is no point in spending days designing and testing your new web site, then finding that no-one knows about it. Capitalise on your effort by following some simple tips for publicity. Although search engines are not the only marketing tool at the web marketer's disposal, they are important, as this supporting page on writing search-engine friendly web pages explains.
• Learn how to add customised favorite icons - a small but classy touch that might impress some visitors to your site.
• Find out about images in web pages: the basics. For all budding designers, and more experienced authors who want to know a bit more about the ins and outs of adding graphics to the page.
• Another accessibility topic - something that should be second nature to good web designers, but is sadly overlooked by many. Using alternative texts for images.
• Discover the pitfalls and the limited uses of new windows in web site design. Initial assumptions about what web users do are not necessarily true. Includes a demonstration of using pop-up windows.
• Find out why messing with link colours and underlines can compromise the usability of your pages. Sometimes you just have to change the link colours - find out when it's OK and how to make things easy for your visitors.
• If you are frustrated by what you see as the limitations of HTML, read my opinion on why web pages cannot be successfully designed like printed layouts.
• Here's an often-overlooked way to get some useful information in web pages: server-side includes (SSIs). Every serious webmaster should know about these!
• Should you learn and use CSS styles in web pages? This article is supported by a related introduction for beginners.
• A short discussion of the usefulness of access keys, which asks more questions than it answers. I'd really welcome some feedback on this topic.
• Hot on the heels of the last accessibility topic is making the use of fonts accessible. The page includes demonstrations you can use to see the practical consequences of defining fonts in different ways, using style sheets and font tags.
• I begin the accessibility series with the use of colour in web pages, and how it can affect the web experience for those with less-than-perfect vision. Don't forget that almost 10% of men have some degree of colour-blindness, and we all find it more difficult to see the older we get.
• I ask are frames are the work of the Devil? - as you might think if you read about them on the web. Although there are some pros and more cons, sometimes, a frame just does it so much better. The page includes demonstrations of how not to do frames, and the use of inline frames.
• I take a look at how two important design principles can be reconciled, with regard to page widths and fonts used. This is a controversial topic, and has been endlessly discussed in various forums, without any consensus being reached.