Basics of Successful Web Design
Like the phrase ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, operative web design is judged by the users of the website and not the website owners. There are many elements that affect the usability of a website, and it is not just about form (how good it looks), but also function (how easy is it to use).
Websites that are not well designed tend to perform off-color and have sub-optimal Google Analytics metrics (e.g. high bounce rates, less time on site, low pages per visit and low conversions). So what makes good web design? A good Web Design can be made by going through Web Designing Training in chandigarh as well. Below we explore the top 10 web design principles that will make your website artistically pleasing, easy to use, engaging, and effective.
- PURPOSE
Good web design always caters to the requirements of the user. Are your web visitors looking for information, entertainment, some type of communication, or to transact with your business? Each page of your website needs to have a clear determination and to fulfill a precise need for your website users in the most effective way possible.
- COMMUNICATION
People on the web tend to want information rapidly, so it is important to communicate clearly and make your information easy to read and digest. Some effective strategies to include in your web design include: organizing information using headlines and sub-headlines, using bullet points instead of long windy sentences, and cutting the guff.
- TYPEFACES
In general, Sans Serif fonts such as Arial and Verdana are stress-free to read online (Sans Serif fonts are contemporary looking fonts without decorative finishes). The ideal font size for reading easily online is 16px and stick to a maximum of 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes to keep your design efficient.
- COLOURS
A well thought out color palette can go a long way to rally the user experience. Complementary colors make balance and harmony. Using contrasting colors for the text and background will make reading calmer in the eye. Vibrant colors make emotion and should be used sparingly (e.g. for buttons and call to actions). Last but not least, white space/ negative space is very operative at giving your website a modern and orderly look.
- IMAGES
A picture can speak a thousand words, and selecting the right images for your website can help with brand positioning and linking with your target audience. If you don’t have high-quality professional photos on hand, consider purchasing stock photos to lift the look of your website. Also, consider using infographics, videos and graphics as these can be much more operative at communicating than even the most well-written piece of text.
- NAVIGATION
Navigation is about how stress-free it is for people to take action and move around your website. Some strategies for effective navigation include a logical page hierarchy, using bread crumbs, designing clickable buttons, and following the ‘three click rule’ which means users will be able to find the info they are looking for within three clicks
- GRID-BASED LAYOUTS
Placing content erratically on your web page can end up with a haphazard appearance that is messy. Grid-based layouts arrange content into sections, columns, and boxes that line up and feel balanced, which leads to a enhanced looking website design.
- “F” PATTERN DESIGN
Eye tracking studies have recognized that people scan computer screens in an “F” pattern. Most of what people see is in the top and left of the screen and the right side of the screen is rarely seen. Rather than trying to power the viewer’s visual flow, successfully designed websites will work with a reader’s natural behavior and display information in order of importance (left to right, and top to bottom).
- LOAD TIME
Everybody dislikes a website that takes ages to load. Tips to make page load times more operative contain optimizing image sizes (size and scale), combining code into a central CSS or JavaScript file (this reduces HTTP requests) and minify HTML, CSS, JavaScript (compressed to speed up their load time).
- 10: MOBILE FRIENDLY
It is now commonplace to access websites from multiple devices with multiple screen sizes, so it is imperative to consider if your website is mobile friendly. If your website is not mobile friendly, you can either reconstruct it in a responsive layout (this means your website will adjust to different screen widths) or you can build an enthusiastic mobile site (a separate website optimized specifically for mobile users).
It is easy to craft a beautiful and functional website, simply by keeping these design elements in mind. Have you got a website design that needs revising or optimizing? Or maybe, you are planning a website and you are looking to get the design right from the ground up. Either way, these principles of effective web design can benefit your website be more engaging, useful, and striking for visitors.