The following are strong suggestions, which will help your web pages be user-friendly
1. Your images should load quickly and easily on a variety of browsers. Be considerate and remember that many users may be using slow modems and/or older browsers. Some of the things you can do:
Keep your images to a minimum. Total graphics per page should be less than 20K bytes. Crop your images to the smallest size possible.
Use 16-color images where possible for those V.G.A. users and your images will always look as you intended them to look.
Consider how your graphics contribute to the overall content. If your pictures are simply "eye candy," remove them. To learn how to create fast loading images, consult the Bandwidth Conservation Society web site: http://www.infohiway.com/faster/index.html
2. Use structural rather than formatting elements to control the layout of your page (i.e. <STRONG> and <EM> rather than <B> and <I>).
3. Font sizes are already default by CSS same as for the font Arial and Times New Roman.
4. As a rule-of-thumb, keep each individual web address to 10 pages or less in length.
Studies have found that up to 90% of users do not scroll down past the topmost portion of the page. You should put the most important information at the top of the page and use the remainder for more detailed information. Alternately, you can offer a “table of contents” at the top of your page (see below).
Offer a “table of contents” that hot links to individual sections of your page. This way the user does not have to scroll down the page but merely "hops down the page" to the linked section.
If you have a document that is broken into a series of separate pages, offer a single
downloadable file for the document (to help people who read documents off-line using a voice synthesizer).
5. If your site has multiple pages, offer a site map on the home page.
6. Avoid using proprietary extensions, i.e., tags and attributes that work only in Internet Explorer ® or only in Netscape ®.
7. Avoid offering downloadable files that can only be used with proprietary software (such as Word ® or WordPerfect ®). Offer files in H.T.M.L. or text format, if possible.
Remember that a P.D.F. file is a graphic that can’t be read by screen readers. If you offer P.D.F. files, please include a link to Adobe Acrobat’s ® free P.D.F. – to - H.T.M.L. and P.D.F. – to - Text translator at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html8. Later versions of H.T.M.L. are more accessibility-friendly. Currently, H.T.M.L. 4.0 is the best option for built-in accessibility features.
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