Design
is a multidimensional discipline that extends across art, technology, fashion,
architecture, product development and several other fields. Beautiful and
creative design can make a product, a marketing material, a website or even an
office space more impressive and memorable. People nowadays are bombarded with
a great deal of information with little time to spare and could be easily
discouraged if the presentation of the information is not appealing or
enticing. Recent studies states that average web surfers make up their minds on
whether to stay on a website in less than 5 seconds after visiting the site. A
good website should have both great design and great content.
Capturing
the attention of a particular audience could be done more effectively with
beautiful design and layout. On the Web the saying goes "content is
king" but producing quality content and information while concurrently
neglecting its visual beauty and aesthetics most times results in low
acceptance and impact on the targeted audience. Beautiful landscapes and
impressive panorama stand out and also invoke an aesthetic appreciation of
nature in us, likewise impressive architectural, product and website design
could make us experience the same feeling. The process of design involves
seeking to generate various possible solutions, utilizing different techniques
and thinking outside the box in the production of creative solutions. It is
important to remember that good web design isn't just about a beautiful
treatment alone, but it should also perform at a high speed.
Here
are some of the basic rules to make sure your site's visitors get enticed,
bookmark your site and most importantly return to your site.
Know
your audience
It
is important to first identify your audience before commencing on a design
project or any other project. Knowing the identity of your target audience is
absolutely necessary in order to know how to pass your message effectively to
them and hopefully engage them on your website. Knowing your audience will not
only help in the presentation of the information but also in creating quality
content for them. By spending time thinking about the nature, demography and
characteristics of your audience, subsequent design thinking time will be
better focused and meaningful. Getting to know your audience might require a
research which can either be quantitative, with hard statistical numbers about
the size and composition of target user groups, or qualitative, with
information about what that user group buys or consumes and what their
lifestyle is like depending on the website's functionality. If this is a
client's project and you have to execute a comprehensive research, feel free to
include it in your quotation.
Use
a clear and simple design
Simple
is better. A beautiful design relies heavily on understanding the spatial
relationships that exist between the different individual components of the
design. Common components include logo which represents identity, navigation
which should be easy to find and use, content which is what your site
visitors are looking for, whitespace which refers to any empty area of a
page, and finally the footer which usually contains copyright, contact,
and as well as a few links to the main sections of the site. The logo and
navigation are usually placed at the top of the website and should placed on
every page of the website for better navigation. Whitespace helps a design to
"breathe" by guiding the user's eye around a page, but also helps to
create balance and unity. Your visitors should be able to find the information
they are looking for in your site with three clicks else they are likely to
click off your site as rapidly as they clicked on it.
Effective
color selection
Selecting
colors is no simple matter. Whether you're painting a house, or you're trying
to design an attractive website, if you choose the wrong color, you could be
headed for a disaster. With most modern displays having the ability to render
more than 16 million colors, color combinations should be selected carefully to
avoid the infinite number of horrible color combinations waiting to happen. It
is important to note that different color choices generate different
psychological responses. E commerce web site owners want to know which color
will make their web site visitors spend more money. There is a field of
psychology known as color psychology which is devoted to analyzing the
emotional and behavioral effects produced by colors and color combinations.
While selecting color, it is important to know whether you need warm or cool
colors. Warm colors are the colors from red to yellow, including orange, pink,
brown, and burgundy. Because of their association with the sun and fire, warm
colors represent both heat and motion. When placed near a cool color, a warm
color will tend to pop out, dominate, and produce the visual emphasis. Cool
colors are the colors from green to blue, and can include some shades of
violet. Cool colors can calm people down and reduce tension. In a design, cool
colors tend to recede, making them great for backgrounds and larger elements on
a page, since they won't overpower your content.
Choose
images thoughtfully
Images
have the ability to convey and communicate an idea or a lot of information very
quickly and effectively, this explains why images are such a prominent part of
web design. As the popular saying "a picture paints a thousand
words", therefore images should be carefully presented. It is very
important to avoid stretching of images so as to avoid distorting the quality
of the images. Images can have various cultural, social and even religious
interpretations so it is important to know the contexts within which they are
used. The right images carrying the necessary messages are capable of capturing
a visitor's attention, informing him/her about vital things or events and
persuade him to act and get engaged on the site. Meanwhile wrong images can
create a disaster by confusing, annoying and even repelling your website
visitors.
Use
beautiful typography
Typography
is the medium through which the content is presented to the end user and
therefore has an overall effect on the personality of the site. Typography
could be useful as a channel through which you can transform a simple text into
an expressive image and thereby improving communication. Good typography makes
a design more appealing, enticing and could be a cornerstone to a successful
web design. Even the combination of different font types could produce an
artistic flair, but be careful not to confuse your users by using too many
fonts in a project except it is absolutely necessary. Like in color selection,
choosing which typeface to use might be an important decision, but how to mix
them effectively is even more critical. Also note that line spacing, (which is
the spacing of the lines of your text) could spice up a good scheme of
typography.
Design
for different screen sizes
Unlike
some decades ago when majority of Internet users accessed the Internet through
their PC, web designers were only bothered about large desktop displays. This
has however changed due to the recent advances in mobile computing, with users
now turning to their hand held devices to browse the web and have access to
information on the go. With this convenience for users comes the challenge of
optimizing websites for different screen sizes and devices ranging from
smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices out there. It could be quite a
challenge to design a website to look the same in every browser, platform and
screen resolution, but the efforts invested will pay off later in the long run.
It could be advisable to make sure you optimize for 1024×768 first, which is
the most widely used screen size. However a new website building technique
called Responsive Website Design (RWD) has emerged. This technique permits you
to create a website that responds and adjusts in size to the different view ports of hand held devices and smaller screens that people use.
Make
your forms easily to use
Web
forms are also essential to websites because they stand in the way of user
needs (a customer online order system for example) and they can improve the
overall functionality and usability. It has been researched that most people
dislike filling in forms, therefore web designers need to care enough of about good
form design. On the Web today, forms are the keystone of eCommerce, social
interaction sites, most productivity-based applications and other various web
applications. This is one of the reasons why form design matters. While
designing forms it is important to think about the user whose interest lies on
the other side of the form, therefore it is important to minimize the pain of
forms especially registration forms. In a situation when you have a long form,
feel free to segment them into logical parts to avoid losing the interest of
your site users.
