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Designing a War —Getting Attention With Your Site Design

Changing font attributes can be an effective way of drawing attention to important events or items, but it must be done wisely, writes Jennifer Kyrnin. Make sure that whatever you are enlarging is truly worthy of the size you give it, she recommends. Consider the standard font size on your page so headlines do not look outrageously big, or not big enough, in comparison. Have standards in mind for what type of headlines should be displayed in what size font, Kyrnin advises; aside from font size, a sans-serif font can be changed to a serif font to create emphasis. Reds are useful for attracting attention, and so is bold or italicized text. Kyrnin notes that images can be used to enhance text in ways that words cannot, while completely rearranging a site can be useful in the case of a huge event, such as the changes sites made immediately following 9/11. According to Kyrnin, animation can attract attention that static images cannot; many designers use it on their "splash" pages to show off their abilities and make the site more exciting. These techniques can easily be taken too far, so Kyrnin suggests making sure to judge the relative importance of items before making them stand out too much, or else users will learn to ignore featured items.

"Designing a War —Getting Attention With Your Site Design"
About.com (03/07) Kyrnin, Jennifer