Auction Template Help - The 10 Design Basics

10 Design Basics
In helping people design pages for okay, we came up with these ten
Design Basics for better pages. An okay workshop and additional guides
were created to expand these ideas. While they focus on About ME pages,
these regemendations can be applied to any web or auction page.


1. How wide?
People viewing your page may have a different screen resolution than
you do, so what looks good on your screen may be too wide on their
screen. By width, we mean the number of pixels, not the width in
inches. All of the web content is displayed in pixels (dots). Readability suffers when text stretches wider than about 700 pixels. And 750 or so is the space left over in stores auctions that have the left navigation turned on, so it is a good idea to make
sure that your photos and content are no wider than that, or visitors will
have to scroll sideways. In no case should any one column be wider than 750 pixels.
2. Breaking up your Page
A page should not run on and on. A page is easier to navigate if it is
broken into groups of ideas, or sections with headings, making it
easier for the viewer to skip around to the areas that most interest
them. A page can be broken with titles (as with this tutorial),
horizontal divider lines, photos, tables, or colored sections.
3. Photos
Photos are a great asset to an auction description or About ME page. okay Picture Services will
host two photos on your ME-page and up to 12 at the top of a listing; but if you would like additional photos (or a
background) in your description area, you would need to put your photos online where they can be
seen by others. Some Internet service providers offer
free web space and there are online image hosts dedicated to storing online photos.
Fortunately, viewers can not peek into your home geputer to see
photos, so that is why online hosting is necessary.
4. Fonts and Lettering
Some people have a huge variety of fonts installed on their machines,
but most users only have the handful of fonts that came with their
geputer. A viewer can only see the font styles that are actually on
their own machine, so it is fruitless to design a page using spiffy
fonts that others can't see. okay's page-designer provides the basic
fonts that almost all viewers can see.

What happens if you use a font style that no one else has? Each browser
has a default font setting that is initially set to Times New Roman. If
the viewer never changes that setting, your unique font will be seen as
Times New Roman.



5. Text Colors and Sizes
When users first discover that they can add color to their text, the
rainbow effect follows. It's fun to play with and exciting to see
mastery over the results. However, once the discovery phase has passed,
there are a few tried and true guidelines. Color should be used to help
the reader navigate or pass through a transition in content. Two or
three font colors are the maximum one should use on a page - one color
for titles, one for body text, and a third for highlights or a change
in theme. Colors have a brightness to them, and the eye instinctively
goes to the brightest color first. Therefore, you don't want your "fine
print" to be in the brightest color.

The size of your text is also important. Headings should be big enough,
or in a different color, so that they stand out against the rest of the
text. Just like having too many text colors, one can have too many
sizes and too many font styles. Stick with just a few basics on your
page. Change the size, color, or style only when it is important to
emphasize or otherwise convey meaning.
6. Paragraphs and White Space
In advertising, white space is king. There should be a margin of empty
space all around your page and text. Writing in paragraphs, and leaving
gaps between blocks of text, provides a resting point that allows the
reader to absorb what has been written before continuing to the next
idea. Paragraphs should be short and contain a geplete idea.
Our well-trained brains have difficulty reading text that is ragged on
the left, such as with centered text or right-aligned text, and
geprehension slows down. That is why only headings and small blurbs
should be centered.