Web Site Design Consideration

Welcome Page

The Welcome Page provides visitors to the site a greeting and a short description of the site. Links to the major sections of the site and/or a site menu (Table of Contents) will direct the user to the desired content in the site. The welcome page is often called the home page (Note: There is technically a difference between a home page and a welcome page. The welcome page greets visitors to the site, and home page is the major page used by most users of the site. However, the two are now commonly treated and referred as one page.)

The welcome page should be short with graphic or animated designs. Much like a front door to a business, the welcome must be presentable and should give an idea of what is contained within the site. Since it is likely that the welcome page is the first page to be visited in the site, it should be somewhat fast loading. It is important not to turn off new visitors by having them wait for a large file download before they even enter the site (first impression are important).

As modem speeds increase, it is possible to add more and larger graphics, and even applets and multimedia objects to the welcome page. However, do try to limit the page download times to under 30 seconds for the portion of the site's visitors who have slower modems, since most visitors can reasonably be expected to have at least a 28.8 kps modem (this will change as time goes on). Try to limit the combined size of all the files (html, java, multimedia, images, etc.) that make up the welcome page to under 80 kilobytes.

Since the welcome page is the main entrance to the site, it should not be obscured by large and/or numerous moving images or loud sounds. Though some flash might be effective, overdoing it could turn off first time visitors. Consider the site's expected audience and the purpose of the site before deciding to add a lot of flash to the welcome page (and other pages as well). It is probably best to lean towards a conservative approach in designing the welcome page, oppose to being overly liberal with the design.

On a final note to this page, the site's visitors will likely have people who are using speech synthesizers, Braille pads, slow connectors, or are using one of the less popular browsers (unlike the latest from Microsoft or Netscape). When developing the welcome page, and the rest of the site, ensure that the design allows reasonable presentation for all visitors. This includes using alternative text for images (the ALT attribute), and alternative content for Java applets (if the applet is critical for the presentation). More discussion on Java, multimedia, and other features is covered later.

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Introduction Page

E.T. Smith Associates' Welcome Page