I need your opinions on this. I am designing a site for my future online business. So what should I do to make it a good website? In terms of design...should it be dark, white or colorful? HTML or Flash?

Share your thoughts here.

Hi, IAMdotCOM. There are many factors which you should consider. Here are a few of them:

• What type of business do you intend to establish?
• Are your clients likely to have specific interests, needs of preferences?
• How much content are you likely to be housing on your site?

If you're creating a sales-pitched site then you should try to wow your visitors with the quality of your presentation - this could be with fancy graphics or simply with clear and subtle novelties. If you're selling spectacles then you really shouldn't use anything unclear or disorganised, but if you're selling dvds then your customers will probably be drawn in and converted into sales with a difficult to navigate but flashy website.

Take a look at yahoo.com or msn.com to have an idea. These major websites spend thousands of dollars to find out which website design looks more appealing to the public.
In general, you should shy away from bright colors. Use light colors. Make sure that the font type and size you use are easily readable.

As quoted above, different strokes for different folks. Your design needs to reflect your audience's taste and preferences. That said, there is one thing which is common to every successful website - Simplicity and ease of use. Whatever scripts, templates, etc. you use, be it PHP, flash, menu scripts or whatever - Make absolutely sure that the final look is simple ( see google ), loads fast ( see google ) and even a moron will know how to use it( see google ).

Yes, I would agree with peeling. Whilst MSN and Yahoo are great for entertainment, when someone wants to use a search engine they usually type 'google.com'. It really depends on your audience. So, I can't help but ask the question - what type of online business are you trying to establish, IAMdotCOM? It's hard to help you further unless we know some more information.

Hello all

I would say that content is king as far a website is concerned and that you should keep your audience in mind. Who are they? What is their level of technical ability? What is their knowledge?

I think any website needs to be easy to navigate around (so you should have a clear menu) and there are a whole host of web design standards to adhere to. I orefer sites that are simple, with not too many flashy graphics.

Originally Posted by peeling

As quoted above, different strokes for different folks. Your design needs to reflect your audience's taste and preferences. That said, there is one thing which is common to every successful website - Simplicity and ease of use. Whatever scripts, templates, etc. you use, be it PHP, flash, menu scripts or whatever - Make absolutely sure that the final look is simple ( see google ), loads fast ( see google ) and even a moron will know how to use it( see google ).

I just have to quote peeling on this one. "(see google)", cracks me up. Everyone here seems to have the gist of what you should be looking for in building your website. If you are artsy and that is what you are selling, art type work/products, then you would normally have a flashier site (flash and graphic imagery). If you are selling products like DVDs or something that would require a shopping cart; you want to stick with simple, yet professional. Always try to figure out who your audience is going to be (as stated in other posts). Once you have figured that out, you can start working on the actual design.

Speaking of MSN and Yahoo. I have always preferred Yahoo over MSN. I think MSN can be difficult to navigate; too much junk to look through. Yahoo has a lot of "stuff", but not near as bad as MSN. Of course, we all know google is IT. No doubt about it, google is the leader. In my opinion.

A good place to start is to think of all the things you hate about websites and then make sure you don't do them with your own! As a lot of people have said it's all down to what you are trying to sell and how that would be best presented.

There are a lot of things that can make a good website, including content, design, layout, what the site is about and much more. Using a combination of all the elements you mentioned would be a fantastic site. Without knowing anything else about it, the design and colors will have to be determined by the way it looks. You might want to do the basic design of the site, and only change colors to show the client two possible choices then let them choose which they like best.

I'd never include flash in my sites. Not only are search engine bots unable to read it, but it also it very slow for anyone using a dial up connection. When I was on dial up 56k, if I came upon a flash site I exited immediately.