The Design of the site includes navigation, color scheme, and repeating graphic design elements to give your website a consistent look.

What is good design? Check out these three infographics that focus on visual communication, typography, and color theory. Also, take a look at these resources from Carleton: Writing for the Web and Top 5 Digital Accessibility Tips.

1. Keep the design simple as it supports the story you want to tell with your site.  Consider drawing a map and/or creating a mock-up in Google Slides to see what content is where and how a reader moves from one page to the next.
2. Design the pages with accessibility in mind so that the largest number of people can view the site without missing out on features.  In addition to the top accessibility features, also consider what your website looks like on a small screen like a phone.  
3. Avoid the trap of continuing to add content to one page. Such additions will make your website appear disorganized. This applies to both text and visual elements as a clean look will also make it easier for your audience to see your main point.
4. Make sure your navigation includes ways to get back to the home page.
5. Choose your plugins carefully. WordPress can make your life easier as it has tools you can plug into your site for additional functionality.  But with plugins comes the responsibility to ensure that they work reliably, which adds a layer to the maintenance of your site. 

Finally, while this is not quite a design element, consider also privacy and security – this is why we want you to start with a private site that only you and a couple of other people can access. Know that your site is by default public, so you need to make it private. Please check with Academic Technology on how to do this.