Good
web design is something that any web designer likes
to achieve and it’s not much hard to achieve. If you
stick to some simple guideline and avoid some very common
mistakes you can easily achieve good website with quality
deign.
Truly excellent web design skills are born out of years
of experience, dedication and plenty of hard-learned
mistakes. Fortunately, being truly excellent at web
design is not a pre-requisite for building a fantastic
website and the lessons learned from those mistakes
can be passed on without the hardship.
This article contains some of the principles which
I have learned the hard way and the easy way. Each principle
is fairly obvious but so many designers ignore them
for one reason or another and the consequence is a hard-to-use,
poor looking site that is difficult to manage and fails
to make the top 1000 in Google. If your website adheres
to the principles below it will almost certainly be
much healthier, and you and your visitors will reap
the benefits.
1. Keep Everything
Obvious - Don't Make Me Think
The book entitled Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense
Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug is one of the
best selling books on the subject of web design and
usability. Personally, I think thinking is a good thing
but at the same time I don't want to be struggling to
figure out how to submit a web form!
Visitors to a website expect certain conventions, breaking
these is a great way of losing visitors. People expect
to find the navigation at the top of a page or on the
left hand side. Logos are mostly found on the top left.
Much research has been conducted into how people view
and use web pages. The good news is that you do not
to know all of this; instead look at how larger companies
such as eBay, Amazon, Google, Microsoft structure their
pages and the language they use, then emulate them.
2. Limit Colors
A website using too many colors at a time can be overwhelming
to many users and can make a website look cheap and
tacky. Any users with color blindness or contrast perception
difficulties may even be unable to use the site.
Limiting a palette to 2 or 3 colors will nearly always
lead to a slicker looking design and has the added bonus
of simplifying your design choices, reducing design
time.
Software like Color Wheel Pro can greatly simplify
the creation of a pallet by showing which colors sit
well together. If you really do not have the eye for
design then software like this provides the perfect
way of escaping monotone or badly combined color schemes.
If your site uses blue and yellow together or red and
green then it may present problems to anyone suffering
with color blindness. Vischeck.com provides free software
that can simulate different types of color blindness.
3. Be Careful With
Fonts
The set of fonts available to all visitors of a website
is relatively limited. Add to that the possibility of
a user having a visual impairment then the options become
even smaller. It is advisable to stick to fonts such
as Arial, Verdana, Courier, Times, Geneva and Georgia.
They may not be very interesting but your content should
be more interesting than your font and if it can't be
read, what is the point of having a site?
Black text on a white background is far easier for
the majority of people to read than white text on a
black background. If you have large amounts of text
then a white or pale background is far more user friendly.
Always ensure that there is a good contrast between
any text and its background. Blue text on a blue background
is okay as long as the difference in shade is significant.
Verdana is often cited as being the easiest to read
on the screen. Georgia is probably the best option for
a serif font.
4. Plan for Change
If you fix the height of your page to 600 pixels will
you still be able to add additional menu items without
completely redesigning your page?
The ability to add or remove content from a website
is fundamental to the ongoing success of it. Having
to rewrite the entire web page or website each time
you want to make a small change is sure fire way to
kill your interest in your own site and will negatively
impact your overall design and usability.
Getting a good idea of how your website is likely to
grow will clarify how best to structure your layout.
For example, a horizontal navigation is often more restrictive
than a side navigation unless you use drop down menus;
if your navigation is likely to grow and you hate drop
down menus then your design choice has been 99% made
for you!
Understanding how to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS),
avoiding unconventional layouts and complicated backgrounds
will all help enormously.
5. Be Consistent
Again, don't make your visitors think! About how to
use your site at least. If your navigation is at the
top on your homepage, it should be at the top on all
other pages too. If your links are coloured red ensure
the the same convention is used on all sections.
By using CSS correctly you can make most of this happen
automatically leaving you free to concentrate on the
content.
6. Keep it Relevant
A picture is better than a thousand words but if the
picture you took on holiday is not relevant to your
Used Car Sales website then you should really replace
it with something which reflects the content or mood
of the page; a photo of a car perhaps!
If you can take something off of your web page without
it adversely affecting the message, appearance or legality
of your website you should do it without hesitation.
Avoid the need to add images, Flash animations or adverts
just because you have space. This wastes bandwidth and
obscures the intentions of your website. If you absolutely
must fill the space, then exercise your imagination
to find something as relevant as possible. Keeping your
content focused will ultimately help your search-engine
rankings.
7. Become a CSS Expert
Cascading Style Sheets should be any web designer's
best friend. CSS makes it is possible to separate the
appearance and layout of your page from the content.
This has huge benefits when it comes to updating and
maintaining your site, making your site accessible and
making your site easy for search engines to read.
CSS at a first glance is very straightforward but is
definitely worth investing in one or more books. Two
great books are: CSS the Missing Manual by David McFarland
and Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm.
8. Avoid Complexity
Using standard layouts for your web page will save
you development time and make your site easier to use.
Pushing the boundaries nearly always leads to quirky
behaviour, cross-browser problems, confused site visitors
and maintenance headaches. Unless you really do like
a challenge then avoid complexity wherever possible.
Many standard layouts are freely available online with
much of the boring, repetitive work already done for
you.
The principles above all border on common sense and
are well known to most people, yet so many sites continue
to deviate away from them and suffer as a consequence.
Following these principles will help you keep away from
trouble, although it still doesn't guarantee it!
About the
Author: Paul has worked as a programmer
and in for over 15 years.
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