Most EFL/ESL teachers use web sites as tools to reach students. Designing a web site is not as easy as it is generally thought. While designing you should take many factors into consideration. In his article Kelly (2000) states some guidelines for designing a good web site for ESL/EFL students. Main point while designing a web site is visitors. As web sites are created for other people, their needs and wants should be considered. So what are the things that are required to call a web site ‘good’? Firstly, you should be sure that everybody can reach your web site easily. You should not restrict the number of people that can use the web site. To manage this, you should design pages that can work on any browser, like Netscape and Explorer, and any computer platform like Windows and Macintosh. Also the web site should not require Java, JavaScript, Flash and other things because they may not be available on all browsers. Besides some people may have slow Internet connections and older computers, so you should make sure that these people can also use your web site. Another point which should be mentioned is the fact that people do not like waiting in vain to see the pages, so you should make your web site as fast as possible. You should also consider the sizes of the pages. They should not be too large or too small. This situation also makes people wait to load the pages.
Easy-to-use web sites are preferred more than other web sites by visitors. Pages and links should be organized well to make the web site easy to use. You should not forget to have a link to the main page from every sub-page. Fonts, colors, and background of the web site are important, too. They should make the pages easy to read. Font size 3 is ideal for texts on the pages. The other point is that there are some web sites requiring logging in or registering. In such a case visitors may not want to use the web site.
To sum up, instead of producing a complicated web site, you can focus on one area and design it as well as you can. Also, your web site should be visually good-looking to draw attention of visitors. In a nut shell, a good web site should be user friendly, useful and effective.
Reference
Kelly, C. (2000). Guidelines for designing a good web site for ESL students. The Internet TESL Journal, 6(3).
