Planetarion Forums

Cynical Oracle · 30 Jan 2004, 13:35

I just bought a norwegian domainname, and created a frontpage, but I think it's kinda empty. I'm reading on mysql and php now, but aside from this, what content should I have? It's supposed to be a graphic design page.. take a look at www.grafikkdesign.no.

Please hand me suggestions

Regards

Structural Integrity · 30 Jan 2004, 13:50

Show on the frontpage what you have to offer, what you do. The frontpage is your introduction page and should be used to familiarise people with you and your business.
So, in case of a graphics design, show a box with links to stuff you've made. For example, if you've designed graphics for your partners' pages, them link to them directly on the frontpage. Perhaps give people the option to view the site with different skins, if that's you business. Or a box with thumbnails of your most recent works.
It needs an introduction, such as "Vilkommen som mir website, mi designer graphics, etc etc", then seperate from that the news/anouncements, like you already have (with one entry).

But most important, show what you have to offer and what you do, on the frontpage.

Cynical Oracle · 30 Jan 2004, 13:52

What do you think about the frontpage layout then?

Structural Integrity · 30 Jan 2004, 14:10

At this moment? There isn't much to lay out, no?

Well, anyway, it looks nice now. I like the top navigation thingy, though I'm personally more of a fan of having the main-nav at the left. But it depends on how much clickery you have on your site. I think if you have a lot of different sections, and it's likely that the user is just going to walk through the section in the main-menu without clicking anything in those sections, then I think the left-menu is the most pleasant to navigate with (least mouse movement to take a quick browse). But if the average user is going to click a lot on the content of the seperate sections (like the gallery), then I think it's OK to use a top menu.
I'm not a webdesigner, but that's what I think of it.

Also, take into account how important your anouncement section is. If you only post an anouncement every month, and it is no longer than a few sentences, then you might want to use the main portion of your frontpage for other things, like showing your work, and move the anouncement system to the side (right 30% of the page for example).

In short, your main content should dictate the page layout.