Hybrid Design

The Basics of Attorney Web Design

These fundamental guidelines regarding fonts and image selection can be very helpful when trying to find a starting point for your website design.

Size does matter when it comes to building effective attorney websites.

It is important to keep your site within certain size limits. Where images are concerned, you are going to want to keep them no larger than 9 to 11 kb. Many images are large initially, but when you are working on a web design layout, you need to compress the images so the page is not slow loading. Images that are larger than needed slow the load time of the entire page, and risk the use of the "back" button by the user. This makes your web design project almost useless.

An important element of attorney web design is using images that fit the content of your website. Sometimes staid, generic images are requested, but may have no relevance to your practice area or law firm. Images that blink, move, or flash (not transitioning Flash elements, but think more along the lines of "flashing neon signs") are to be avoided when designing any website, but particularly those that are for professionals such as attorneys, doctors, accountants, etc... You may think this adds to the overall impression, but in the world of web design it is seen as highly amateur.

An effective, user-friendly website should never require horizontal scrolling. It is better to have a fixed width layout than to risk users having to scroll horizontally. This is a basic no-no throughout the world of web design.

Fonts are equally important when it comes to creating outstanding attorney websites. In the print world, the normal standard is sans-serif fonts for headlines, and serif for text. However, website design, particularly attorney web design, is the opposite. Sans-serif fonts are much easier to read on computer monitors because the resolution is not as high as it is in print. Using serif fonts for normal text are liable to cause blurring and therefore they will be extremely hard to read.

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