**Please be aware that this was written back in 2004, and so some aspects of this guide will be out of date. However, there are elements of this guide that I think are still relevant even today, so I encourage prospective web designers to read through this guide - Toji (2012)

Each time I'm on the Internet doing nothing but looking through random pages, I always encounter pages that try to look professional, but fail in just about every possible way. Sure, they have nice fancy graphics that could mop the floor with my skills any day, but every thing else about the site simply suffers for it.
So what am I going to do about it? Not much... but I thought I'd write up this little guide to outline the important parts of what makes up a decent web site. While this is primarily aimed towards the anime fan sites, this guide can still be applied to all web sites in general.

[General Design] [Website Names] [Content] [Useless Information] [Spelling and Grammar] [Affiliation] [Conclusion]

General Design

Splash Pages

For those not familiar with what a splash page is, it's basically an 'introduction' page with some fancy graphics that just tells the user to enter the page.
It's been proven that users will only make three clicks of a mouse to try and find what they want on a site. Anymore than that, and most people will leave your page, which is frustrating if you have what they're looking for. By having a splash page for no reason, you're forcing the user to make one click, even before they get the chance to explore your site!
There are exceptions for using a splash page. If your site is using certain plug-ins that the user may not have, like Java or Flash. The splash page would then serve the purpose of outline what plug-ins are required, and give links to where the user could get the plug-ins.
Another reason would be to accomodate for different users, such as 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 resolution, although these days, most sites have been designed so that their pages are viewable without horizontal scrolling regardless of the size of the screen.
The last reason would be to provide a text-only page for users that have disabled the displaying of images of their browsers, but again this is very rare these days.

So to put it simply, if you've set up a splash just to simply tell the user to enter your site, get rid of it - You're only annoying the user

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Navigation

Navigation is what's either going to alienate your users, or be the user's best friend. The reason that navigation exists, is so that it makes it easier for users to explore your site.
The typical type of navigation, is left side navigation which is a positive thing, but is a negative thing at the same time. It's positive because most pages use left side navigation and the user is already familiar with it, but it's negative because of that same reason - pages start becoming very similar to each other in this aspect, regardless of different colours or images.
Right side navigation is a different alternative, because it's much closer to the scroll-bar, allowing users to scroll the page and click links on the navigation very quickly. Navigation situated at the top of your site is another alternative also.
Regarding frames, it's really not recommended if you're aiming toward a large audience. You'll be getting yourself in to a totally different mess.

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Level of Navigation

Now this one of the few things that annoys very much, and I've noticed this with a lot of anime websites. Webmasters of those websites simply don't know how to categorize their information properly in order to make the navigation more effective. Here's an example of what I've usually seen when I first enter the page:

- Absorbtion
- Ages
- Attacks
- Aura
- Biographies
- Birthdays
- Buu's Stages
- Capsule Co.
- Cell's Stages
- Clothing
- DB Episode List
- DBGT Episode List
- DBZ Episode List
- Death List
- Dragonballs
- Earth's Special Forces
- Errors
- Family Tree
- Frieza Saga
- Fusions
- Gadgets
- Garlic Jr. Saga
- Great Saiyaman
- Guardians
- Kamehameha Origin
- Legendary SSJ
- Name Puns
- Nimbus Cloud
- Orange Star High
- Planets
- Power Levels
- Races
- Red Ribbon Army
- Saiyan Saga
- Saiyan Tail
- Scouters
- Senzu Beans
- Snake Way
- SSJ Levels
- Timeline
- Tournaments
- Training Locations
- Useless Info.
- Voices Cast
- Weighted Clothing
- Wishes
- Women
- Z Sword
- Z Warriors

Notice how much scrolling is needed? and I'm viewing that in 1024 x 768 resolution! I won't go in to how useless some of these sections are just yet, but as you can imagine, the navigation is large, and this is only one portion of the navigation that I've found!. Users do not like scrolling down plenty to find what they want, they want the information now, now, now!
This is where categorizing the information comes in. If done correctly, your navigation will be very effective. Keep in mind the three click rule mentioned earlier. Here's my alternative to the above:

- Introduction
- Attack Information
- Character Information
- Technology
- Transformations
- Voice Cast
- Locations

Notice how much more organised and tidy it looks? The user may have to make one or two extra clicks to get the information they want, but it's still staying true to the three clicks rule (unless you have a splash page that serves no purpose, in which case, you should get rid of it immediately), and it's not forcing the user to scroll down and down and down to get to what they want.

So once more: PLEASE CATEGORIZE YOUR NAVIGATION.

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Colours

Your choice of colours will affect how well the user can read the page. If they're having a hard time reading your content, they're going to leave. You need to keep in mind that not everyone has the same kind of monitor as you, and therefore, some colours that you can see easily, others may not see as easily.
The most number of colours that should be used on a page (not including pictures) are three, four at most. Anymore than that, and users will get confused by the multiple colours on the page.
A good example for colours would be black, white and blue - black for the background, white for the text (or vice versa), and blue for the links.
This page will be useful in determining what web-safe colours you should use.

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Website Names

The name of your page should be something that would make it stand out, a name that isn't common, something that catches the user's attention. If it's a fan-site don't use a name that contains a word that most other fan sites use (i.e. ANIME [insert other word here]), otherwise you're going to confuse your users, since it sounds so similar to the other five sites they just visited. If you're having trouble thinking of a name, look in the dictionary and thesaurus to give you some ideas.

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Content

You can have the best choice of colours for your site, and you can have the most user friendly navigation on your page. However, if your content is poor, your users are going to leave your site, pissed off.
When doing the content of your site, make sure that what you're explaining, actually makes sense, and reaches through to people with the least amount of words. Have a friend or family member who's not familiar with the theme of your site look through it. What can they understand? what don't they understand? make of a note of their findings.
Also, if it's information on a particular character or series, don't give away how they die or what happens at the end of the series without warning them. Some people will be ultimately pissed when they find that their favourite character that they love so much is told that they die, even before they've finished watching the series! Thanks for ruining it for them!
If your site is going to be about more than one particular series, then it's essential that you provide useful information to the viewers of your site.

And also remember children, plagarising other people's work = Lame

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Useless information

When making your page, you have to determine what people would like to know, and what they don't care about. You need to be careful not to put stuff on your page that people may have already seen a thousand times over, like:

- Fusions
- Power Levels
- Deaths
- Z Sword
- Episode List

And so on, while those are primarily Dragonball related, other anime fan-sites can be guilty of doing this kind of thing as well. Have a look at pages that are similar to what your page is about. What do they have? What don't they have that could interest users? Also think about what sections that the average user or newbie would want to look through (i.e. the main characters? etc.)

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Spelling and Grammar

The average user does not give a damn about how much PHP/CSS/JavaScript/HTML/ActionScript you know and have implemented into your site. If you can't spell correctly, or type up a proper sentence, they won't be able to understand what it is you're typing and leave your site in frustration. As a webmaster, at least show the users that you have some intelligence by spelling correctly, and it's not that difficult, by using Microsoft Word and having friends and/or family proof-read your site. You'd be suprised at the kind of things you miss when typing things up.

So please please PL3aZ sPe31 R17e!!!11ONE

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Affiliation

I'm going to be honest here. I really don't understand the concept of affiliation, and so far no site that does affiliation has explained what affiliating is! From what I've gathered it's just an excuse to create a PHP navigation bar full of Photoshopped buttons, and therefore cluttering your page up.

Now here's a question: If I just got to your page, why the hell would I want to immediately leave and visit someone else's page?

If you want to link to your friends' sites, that's alright - just create a simple links page. This way, users aren't bombarded with crappy buttons that tell them to leave the current site they're on, and go to another site. Plus without those excess buttons, your site will look more professional, and even load quicker for users on slower connections.

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Conclusion

There you have it people, I hope you learned something today. People don't like extremely long navigation menus, but they enjoy a neat and tidy one. People also like reading detailed and useful character biographies, without fear of having the series ruined for them without being informed. But what they love most of all is useful information and originality!. There's nothing wrong with making a few mistakes here and there, but hopefully this guide will get you thinking about the important things that make up an effective web site.

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