One thing you’ll find in abundance, on the internet, is web design tips. There are a substantial number of people who have their own idea of what makes the perfect website. This is because there’s a certain level of subjectivity to it. What one person may like, another may not.
Despite all that, web design is without a doubt, the most important aspect of a website and its success. More than 50% of web surfers say the design of a site is what they use to determine company credibility. As a by-product, it also affects bounce rate, sales, etc.
The best approach is to tackle web design from a more objective perspective, and in order to do that, you’ll need to find the necessary information. This is where this article comes into the equation. Many of these ideas or tips are backed by science. So stop relying on your feelings, and start to apply design elements you know actually work.
Web Design Tips
1. Keep it Simple
What it comes to the design of your website, you want to adopt a less is more philosophy. Research has shown that most web surfers don’t like websites that are visually complex. To put it simply, more complex web designs are perceived as less beautiful to the eyes.
So what should that mean for your website? Here are a few tips for web design beginners for you to consider:
- Reconsider your sidebar: One thing you may have noticed is that a lot of websites are opting not to have a sidebar at all. Instead favouring the single-column design. This means fewer distractions on the page, allowing the viewer to focus on the elements that actually matter.
- Go with a streamlined layout: Most people prefer things they are familiar with, and will be put off by non-standard website designs. Therefore, you may find it better to go with a design layout and trope that is familiar. There are more conventional things you can do if you want to stand out.
2. Choosing Your Colour Scheme
You always want to make use of colour. The colour you decide to implement into your website will be forever associated with it, so take your time, when choosing. Websites that are well-marketed, will have a colour commonly associated with them. You want to go with a colour theme that matches the product(s) you wish to sell on the site.
If you have a website that sells toys, then you may want to stay away from dark colours, like greys and blacks. If it’s a personal site, then there shouldn’t be any boundaries when selecting your colour theme.
3. Make the Website Searchable
One thing we can all agree on is the usefulness of websites today, especially if the site you’ve designed is for an actual business. A website can offer a range of things, such as a means to sample or showcase your products or to sell a service. However, if your website is unreachable, then it defeats the purpose of creating the site altogether.
Of course, you can set up a PPC campaign and drive visitors to your site at a cost per click, but optimising your site content for the search engines, is an excellent way for you to bring in organic traffic. When you adopt SEO for your site, you will be able to drive traffic to your sites from major search engines like Yahoo, Bing and Google.
4. Use a Responsive Design
People access the web on a variety of devices, all of which have their own screen sizes. No matter what device an end-user may be accessing your site on, you want to ensure their experience is consistent. Instead of wasting time creating some big complex animations, along with hover effects that only work on select devices, it may be best to spend that time improving the UX and UI for your viewers.
When you go with a responsive design, you can ensure your site will be optimised across multiple platforms, for both mobile and desktop-based devices.
There’s a wealth of information available on responsive design, so I recommend you check that out.
5. Keep Your Typography Consistent
When reading a book, and going through all the different pages, we expect a sense of consistency. We expect the text to have the same font size, with the same word spacing, along with a similar format. It’s this consistency that helps to keep us interested and engaged, offering a familiar experience while reading.
This is also true for a website. You want the typography to have that same level of consistency and order. Your body text, headers, links and other text should all follow the same styling across the entirety of the website. You should also think about font size, colour, padding, line spacing and weight of the font the content is written in.
You want to create a universal-style palette for your website. By doing this, you ensure consistency across your entire web design.
There are a number of tools and plugins that you can use to help you in this area. So I suggest you at the very least check them out because site consistency can have a very positive effect on your site.
6. Utilise Social Proof
One of the last web design tips is all about conformity bias. This is essentially about people’s tendency, to do what others are doing. This means, if a sizable amount of people approve of something, then other people are more likely to agree with it too.
One way you can benefit from this on your site is through the implementation of social proof. If you are able to show that other viewers perceive your website positively, whether it’s due to your service, content or product, new site visitors are more likely to feel the same way.
There are many ways that you can show this, such as through social shares, testimonials, and/or media mentions. There is a wide range of information on this subject alone, so I suggest you give that a look.
7. Get Feedback
Regardless of what you may decide to pursue in life, feedback always proves to be crucial in both development and learning. Getting the necessary critique, may not always be to your liking but should help you improve your web design skills and create a site that is better perceived by the masses.
When it comes to receiving that feedback, there are many ways you can go about it. You can use a service, or you can add a comment box, in which people can type their opinions and send them to you.
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