Designing a website involves managing different elements properly. Yes, the site does need to look good, but you can’t forget the fact that it also has to be functional and enjoyable as well. When it comes to designing and publishing sites with a lot of text contents, line of text should always be your main concern. To help you get started, we are going to go through several basic tips on this matter.

It would be best to keep your line of text below 600 pixels in width. Have you ever notice how magazines and newspapers arrange articles in columns? Columns are used because they will make it easier for users to continue to the next line after finishing one. Of course, using columns is not an option when you want to design fluid pages displaying articles and valuable contents, so the best way to go is to keep the line of text shorter than 600 pixels. With this setting, users that are still using 1024 x 786 pixel screen resolution and those who use higher, HD, screen resolutions can view the site’s content comfortably.

If you want to make the site even more fluid, you can also use flexible line of text size.

It is very easy to achieve this kind of flexibility; simply use enclosures – DIVs or Tables – set to relative size. This way, your line of text will be wider when viewed on wider screens. Limit the flexibility to a certain extent to keep the line of text from getting too wide to read comfortably, and you are all set.

Flash animations are great when it comes to creating smooth and fluid web interface. The fact that it can be programmed in many different ways to create interactive user experiences makes Flash even better. Still, you need to make sure you use Flash elements properly in order to make visiting your site highly enjoyable.

Using Flash-based navigation panel is great, but you might want to try AJAX as well. Both elements offer high interactivity and fluid interface, although Flash is more suitable for design-intensive sites while AJAX offer better performance in general. If you are building a full-Flash site, you can also use several navigational features to make the site even more fluid.

Flash can also be used to protect images. Third-party software does allow users to extract images from a Flash file, but the extra trouble will make them think twice. Protecting other page elements can also be done easily when you are using Flash to create the entire site.

If you are featuring a lot of text contents, Flash may not be the best technology to use. You should opt for HTML+CSS, AJAX, or use Flash as part of the page and display text contents as HTML instead. This is because reading text contents in Flash is far from being pleasant, unless you are using additional technologies such as Flash Paper.

Last but certainly not least, always make sure you keep an eye on the site’s overall performance. Flash SWF files can be quite large and heavy to load, so take the extra steps to compress them and maintain performance.

One of the best elements to use when you are designing a web page is of course images. Position images correctly, and your site will look stunning to viewers. Some web designers even use images to accentuate titles and important messages, adding nice touches to the web in general. However, it is essentially important to compress your images properly in order to maintain solid performance and low loading time.

You can use different file formats for web images. JPEG is probably the most common one, featuring low file size and supreme image quality. For vector images and shapes with limited color usage, PNG offers the best quality to size ratio. GIF is often used for web animations, although several web designers do love to use GIF for still images as well.

When compressing images, it would be best to focus more on proper balance between size and quality. If you reduce the file size forcefully, image quality will be sacrificed for sure and your web page will not look good at all.

Artifacts and bad color gradations are among the most common problems found with image compression.

You can also alter the design to get the best performance and lowest file size out of your web images. If you use solid colors with little elements, you can also use CSS instead of full image to create the same look; you will be increasing the performance of your site greatly this way. Once you reach the right file size while still maintain proper image quality, you can position the images and publish your site in no time.