Dreamflex Web School

E Tips From New Horizons

Preserve formatted Word text in Dreamweaver to save time

(Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver MX 2004)

If your Word document includes formatting and typography that you want included in your web designs, you can paste the text into your Dreamweaver layout and preserve its typographical architecture. To do this, highlight the text in Microsoft Word and press [Ctrl]C ([command]C on the Mac) to copy it. Open your web page in Dreamweaver and place your insertion point in the location that you wish to paste your text. To paste Word text along with it’s formatting into your Dreamweaver document window, select Edit > Paste Formatted.

Follow this quick usability rule to save users from unnecessary frustration

You may have heard of the three clicks rule:

* Don’t make the user click more than three times to get anywhere important.

But, if you really want happy users, follow the information parity rule:

* Don’t require any more clicks or other information from the user than a logician would require to deduce exactly where the user wants to go.

For instance, suppose your website sells bus and boat tours to various destinations. If the user selects Hawaii, presumably you only offer boat trips, not bus trips. So, don’t send him to a menu where he has to click on a link that says By Boat. Just send him through to the Hawaii Boat Trip page since that’s the only possible option.

Of course, you may wonder what the big deal is if the user only has to click three or fewer times. The problem is that users can get annoyed if they think that the clicks or information your site requests are unnecessary. All the rationalization in the world means little if the user intuitively knows there’s a better way.