The following tips will help make sure you don't
inadvertently make your page, or part of your page,
invisible to visitors:
1. If you use a textured background GIF make sure you
also specify a background colour that is similar to the main
colour in the GIF or your text could be unreadable to
someone browsing with text-only. Believe it or not, I have
found myself trying to read white text on my browser's
default light background! The fact that I had specified a
default background colour rather than white was the only way
I realised there WAS something there to read.
2. If your background texture/colour is dark, use a
light text to create enough contrast to make it easy to
read. If the background texture/colour is light, use a dark
text.
3. Keep your use of the brighter colours to a minimum:
fluorescent green or yellow text on black, for instance, is
very hard on the eyes. If you favour a black background, use
such effects sparinglysay to draw attention to your email
address. Bright coloured backgrounds are also hard on the
eyesnot to mention the fact that finding a good
contrasting text colour (apart from black or white) is
almost impossible because bright colours are often neither
dark nor light.
4. Preferably use the same background texture/colour on
all your pages as it gives a more unified feel and
appearance to your site. However, if your chosen colours
clash badly with, say, the colours in an important graphic
or photo on one particular page, by all means change the
background for that one page.
5. If you change the link colours from their default
settings (for instance, the green and blue of Internet
Explorer and the green and purple of Netscape Navigator)
because they clash with your chosen colour scheme, then keep
these link colours consistent throughout your site or
visitors will have trouble working out which links they have
been to and which they haven't. If you've used colour to
enliven your text in other places, they may even have
trouble working out what's a link and what isn't.
6. Don't specify the same colour for visited links as
for unvisited ones: this will confuse visitors just as much
as using different link colours on each page.
About the Author
Laraine Anne Barker writes fantasy for young people. Visit
her web site at http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz for FREE stories
and novel excerpts. Sign up for the NOVELLA OF THE MONTH
CLUB, absolutely FREE!