A key E-marketing rule when creating a website is to create simple graphics that complement the text. Use graphics to enhance your message, not overpower it. Too many graphics look tacky and cheap.

If your site accepts advertising banners, be discrete, and keep the banner ads small enough so they don't hinder the site's readability. Remember, online readers read about 11 percent as quickly as paper readers. Don't let site graphics compete for your niche's attention and draw their attention away from your site's text content.

Here are three sites that I judge could use a quick course in graphic layout: PC World, PC Magazine and ICQ.

How about three sites that I judge use graphic layout well: The Webby Awards, Video Farm, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

I don't think these are the six most clear choices, although ICQ is roundly criticized by all site designers that I know. I list them because they stuck out in my mind from the mass of sites I've visited recently.

Even though the Video Farm site is graphically intensive and the PBS site posts at least a dozen images on the first page, both sites are easily navigated and don't have a cluttered appearance. The hyperlink options are obvious and delineated.

The three sites needing redesign are, in my opinion, a hodge podge of text, color and shapes.

If the niche markets the magazines and ICQ are trying to reach like the designs, great. That's what the site designers are striving for. I love the ICQ program, but I dislike visiting the site. I'm no longer a fan of the two magazines, although before the Internet hit big in '95 I was a regular subscriber to both. I find their websites difficult to navigate -- so I've dropped off. Maybe I'm not their niche anyway.

But maybe I am

Dave Murphy is founder and membership director of ITrain, the International Association of Information Technology Trainers. ITrain is the global professional society for IT trainers.
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