VPS.net's Twelve Days of Christmas – 10 Lords a-Leaping
Learn all about the do’s and dont’s of web design as our 12 day adventure moves forward.
The twelve days of Christmas continues here at VPS.net. Now that we’ve looked at the influence of music on our holiday season (12 Drummers Drumming), and how bagpipes inspired WWII soldiers (11 Pipers Piping), it’s time to learn some new “commandments” to live by.
As we continue on our journey, it’s becoming obvious that each day has a hidden religious meaning behind it. That’s because between the years 1558 and 1829, Catholics in England were entirely prohibited from practicing their religion. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was written for Catholic children to learn their religion in a secretive way. The 10th day of Christmas is no different. “10 Lords a-leaping” refers to the Ten Commandments.
We’ve all heard the Ten Commandments from the Bible, but do you know the ten commandments of web design? An unprofessional looking website can steer customers away for good. If your site is not navigable, forget about it. Thomas Schmidt gives us a rundown of ten rules every web designer should live by:
- Thou shalt know thy audience.
- Thou shalt optimize thy site for mobile devices.
- Thou shalt optimize thy site load times.
- Thou shalt test thy site across browsers to ensure it displays properly.
- Thou shalt analyze site visitor data. A/B test and set up goals to track success.
- Thou shalt use GIT to version thy site.
- Thou shalt place great importance on choosing the right fonts and font sizes for thy site.
- Thou shalt NOT over do any CSS effects. Keep it simple.
- Thou shalt NOT use too many colors.
- Thou shalt NOT clutter thy web page. Give thy sections padding and limit images, banners, and large paragraphs of text.
There you have it, 10 simple web design commandments that are sure to bring you success. They may not be written on an ancient tablet of stone, but they are posted on an online blog!
Turn to VPS.net to host your newly designed web page!