Whenever people talk about beautifully website design, in most cases they only refer to looks. But the truth is–a good website design has nothing to do with beauty, but everything to do with purpose. Meaning, if viewers of your website have a hard time using the site, then regardless of how beautiful the site looks, it’s definitely not a good website. Having said that, what exactly makes a website great? And what golden rules do great web designers apply to come up with excellent web designs?
A responsive website design is simply a website whose content, structure and images appear the same way on all devices. For instance, if a user is accessing your website using a desktop, and thus getting the full view, the site should be able to retract and fit on a smaller screen in case they decide to switch to a tablet or smartphone.
In brief, a responsive website design saves you the trouble of having to design various websites for different devices. As such, you’ll have a single design showing the same on all devices.
If your website design has that striking appearance but loads like molasses, then it definitely doesn’t fit into our category of “good design”. To make the website load faster, consider optimizing image sizes, combining the codes into JavaScript file and central CSS, and lastly, minifying CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.
Well-thought color pellets can enhance users’ experience on so many levels. To begin, complimentary colors are good for creating balance and harmony. Then using contrasting colors for the background and texts can be good for readability. For creating emotions, consider using vibrant colors–but sparingly. Lastly, not least though, white or negative space may give your website design a modern, uncluttered look. For the golden rule, it’s advisable to pick three colors that you’re supposed to stick with until the end.
One recent study on eye tracking found out that people skim through websites and blogs in a sort of “F” pattern. They will start by viewing the top then move to the left, and rarely looking at the right side. It’s however not advisable to force this pattern into your website design, instead try to work with the scanning behaviors of your viewers, and use the pattern to display your content according to importance. That’s to say, if the website design must have a right column, then consider putting the information you deem less significant there.
The size of the image you post online matters a lot as far as the credibility of your website design goes. In other words, if the size of the image you’re posting is too big, it might affect the loading speed of the site. And if you happen to make it too small, chances are the picture might end up pixelated. So whether you’re taking the photos yourself or searching them online, ensure the images you decide to use are properly –sized before uploading them. Otherwise, the photos may lose clarity, thus affecting the overall appearance of your web page design.
Sans Serif fonts, including Verdana, Arial, and Helvetica among others, are the most used because they are easier to read. However, for a solid typeface, particularly for those concerned about the general appearance of their website design, it’s always best to consider a typeface that’s super easy to read, has a touch of graphics and is quite fanciful. For instance, you can consider picking Lola, Book Antiqua, or Georgia if you’re running a blog with too much text.
Now you have them-all the ingredients of a good website design. But more importantly remember, too much text on your website can do it more harm than good. To stay safe, try to break them into legible paragraphs and larger sub-headings. Also, if you can use images and icons to drive your point home, then consider using them instead of infusing too much text in your website design.
