Vocabulary Bank Unit 17

Task 1. Memorize the following words and word-combinations:

1. aesthetic

2. assumption

3. bland slogans

4. bloated

5. body text

6. cluster

7. cluttered

8. de-fluffed language

9. deviate

10. discourse markers

11. emphasis

12. exclude

13. facilitate

14. fixed font size

15. goal-driven navigation

16. goal-given

17. grasp

18. humble

19. in a single glance

20. intimidating

21. maze

22. navigate

23. out-of-context

24. overabundance

25. overabundance

26. page titles

27. relevance-enhanced image reduction

28. relief

29. rotate

30. salient information-carrying words

31. secondary pages

32. sensory

33. shape

34. straightforward

35. strategic positioning

36. strictly

37. subhead

38. superfluous

39. texture

40. thumbnail shot

41. to exhibit

42. tricky puzzle

43. typo

44. undifferentiated blob of content

45. unintentionally

46. unintentionally

47. unity

48. unwarranted

49. usability

50. user with disability

51. user’s lifeline

52. violating design

53. violating design convention

54. web-authoring

55. zooming

TEXT 17A. WEB DESIGN.

As the Internet has become to discover its true identity, one of the things that has become clear this still — evolving medium is that major attraction is information. The web sites that attract the largest audiences share one thing in common: they are all in the information business.

What is design? Design — the act of working out the form of something; an arrangement scheme; a decorative or artistic work; the creation of something in the mind. It is not difficult for users to understand the main elements and principles of design. The elements of design — line, shape, space, texture, value and color. The principles of it — movement, emphasis, balance and unity.

Many elements go into successful Web site design, we can cluster those elements into sensory, conceptual and reactive aspects. That is, design isn't only what you see, it's also what you think and feel as you navigate a Web site.

Whether your site is about entertainment or not — your visitors might welcome a few moments of light relief! Perhaps some fun games to play, or a tricky puzzle or maze to solve.

Although gaining attention is an important part of any communication act, it is important to try to keep your message as simple as possible.

· Use only the amount of the text and graphics as is absolutely necessary to get your point across.

· Superfluous graphics can interfere with understanding.

· An overabundance of fonts or colors can distract than assist learning. Remember the Web is international!

A well - designed page, whether in print or on the Web, is the thing of beauty. A skilled designer can take widely different elements like body text, heading, graphics, links and whatever, and arrange them into a harmonious whole. Good design is practical as well as aesthetic. Well -designed pages are easier to read, and lead your readers' eyes where you want them to be led. This article looks strictly at the visual aspects of page design.

A professionally done web-sites brings in greater profits, attracts more customers and help to get in touch with the right partners. All these cannot be achieved without effective web development strategies. Any web development starts with working out web design, concepts and ends with strategic positioning on the Internet, which leads your site to success.

Here's a list often additional design elements that will increase the usability of virtually all sites:

1. Place your name and logo on every page and make the logo a link to the home page.

2. Provide search if the site has more than 100 pages.

3. Write straightforward and simple headlines and page titles that clearly explain what the page is about and that will make sense when read out-of-context in a search engine results listing.

4. Structure the page to facilitate scanning and help users ignore large chunks of the page in a single glance.

5. Use hypertext to structure the content space into a starting page that provides an overview and several secondary pages that each focus on a specific topic.

6. Use product photos, but avoid cluttered and bloated family pages with lots of photos. Some products may even need zooming or rotating photos, but reserve all such advanced features for the secondary pages. The primary product page
must be fast and should be limited to a thumbnail shot.

7. Use relevance-enhanced image reduction when preparing small photos and images.

8. Use link titles to provide users with a preview of where each link will take them, before they have clicked on it.

9. Ensure that all important pages are accessible for users with disabilities.

10. Remember Jakob's Law of the Web Users Experience: users spend most of their time on other sites, so that's where they form their expectations for how the Web works.