One of the good things that web site templates have given web designers is a form of design idea or inspiration. There are a lot of things you can find in a website template design that could inspire you when you are designing you own website.

There is what we call as the swap images. Swap images are any buttons that changes when clicked. Some visitors actually think that these kinds of images are interactive and find them interesting. Fireworks is used to design these swap images.

Another image that is similar to the previous is the rollover images. These images change when the mouse is placed over them. Most web designers try to use rollover images whenever they can since most users find the touch of these images classy in its simple way. Aside for aesthetic purposes, prettying up your image presentation with rollover images will not affect your site’s loading time if you use text rollovers.

Another that you can use is the DHTML. One thing you need to know about this term is that it is not a language. It is just a term coined to refer to the creative way of making interactive and dynamic web pages. Using DHTML would require you to use a combination of CSS, HTML, Javascript and the HTML DOM. DHTML is very helpful if your navigation system is a little bit complex or if you have too many sub menus. DHTML can help you neatly organize these menus in your page. To top it all, DHTML is also very easy to use.

Using Flash as your whole web page is definitely a very bad idea. However, coming up with a Flash introduction or some Flash animation in priority pages is a good idea. They do not make your site’s loading time too slow and they also create a good impression among your viewers.

Eye-catching graphics are very useful in getting the attention of the viewers. Thus, using bevels, collages, and the likes will do a lot of good for your website.

One of the advantages of making designs using tables is that they are easy to make and at the same time do not take long to load. Using tables as your design also does not take much of you versatility. What is the use of a very over-whelming website if it loads in terms of hours? Tables create the balance between impressing designs and fast loading.

To have a good web design, it’s not always the looks and features that are important. Designers need to think it through on how to effectively design a good web page. Effective means a lot of things and here are some things that most designers overlook.

Web Design tips that you shouldn’t overlook

Fast loading – Always keep in mind, not everyone has a super fast Internet connection and not a lot of people really like over exploded designs that take a lot of time to load. Always, design a web page that is fast and efficient. Use little to none background images and optimize your CSS. It should at least load 15 seconds or less.

Simple Navigation – This is easily one of the least though about especially for a beginner. It’s really nice to have all those chromed-uber-Photoshoped buttons or those cool Flash animated navigations, but then again people won’t notice it much. Most people would just hover and click and not really care how it looks. Most people even like simple looking buttons. Also remember to put all your important links where a visitor would most likely look first (it’s usually at the top left). Try to link only those which are important but also try to link those links which you think a visitor might be interested in.

Screen Resolution – This is pretty important. You should also consider resolution aesthetics so that your design would fit in most (if not all) screen resolutions. Again, optimize your CSS and use percentages at most and not absolutes.

Browser Compatibility – Test your designs on different browsers. It should be compatible to most (if not all) browsers. As you know, browsers have different ways of displaying web content, it could look good on your IE but when loaded in Chrome it’d look messy. Common browsers that people use today are Firefox, IE, Opera, Chrome and Safari. There’s also Lunascape, it’s not a new browser but it uses different browser engines which means it’s a good browser to test your webpages – think of it like a 3 in one browser.

Readable Fonts – Yes, it’s the most basic thing that most people overlook. Using light colors as texts like green, gray, purple… it’s a pain to read. Even if the theme is high contrast, not a lot of people likes or used this kind of style. Just use regular ones like Verdana or Arial.