General Style Guidelines for Web Media

Web design has a huge number of resources for accessing the accessibility and effectiveness of your website. Many of the rules above can also be applied to web design, however there are some specific things to bear in mind. The Web Services Group have some good guidelines which can be applied to general Website design, you should follow their recommendations if you are using Reason to build your website: http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/webgroup/training/

• Basic technical terminology:
  It is essential to gain a basic understanding of the anatomy of a web page. Here is a very quick and helpful description from Blueprint Design Studio based in Chicago: http://blueprintds.com/2008/12/30/anatomy-of-a-web-page/
• Headings and fonts:
  sans-serif at, at least, 12 points is a good rule to follow. Headings can be far bigger than traditional print media and should generally be in a sans-serif font.
• Images:
  Make jpegs
  72 dpi with the width not exceeding 500 pixels in any direction will provide you with an image that will load fast. Use Optimize for Web in the Save function in Photoshop for peak performance.
• Layout:
  This is dependent upon the design system that you are using. If you are using Reason or WordPress a standardized, tabular format will come as standard in the page template. If building your own site it is important to consider the arrangement of the essential elements: site title (header), body content, navigation, footer and any additional side bars.
• Navigation:
  Must be clear and it is wish to avoid flash-based navigation due to accessibility issues (smartphones, iPads). Standard navigation locations are directly above or below the header or in a left sidebar.
• In you class WordPress MU blog: /wiki/spaces/TAR/pages/26457382
  If you need to upload images click on "Select files" in the next window to upload your images. Please note: the maximum width for images in the Carleton WordPress MU is 1024 pixels X 1024 pixels. If your image is larger it will not upload. If your file exceeds 2MB then depending upon the blog settings it will also probably fail to upload. Please resize your images in Preview or Paint before uploading them. In general a good rule of thumb to follow is for your images not to exceed 500 pixels in an dimensional direction.