7 Quick & Simple Website Design Tips
Seven simple website design tips that everyone should follow. These of course are not set in stone but, it’s usually best to learn the rules before breaking them.
- Don’t re-invent the wheel.
- Be consistent.
- Form before function.
- Always have the websites’ goals in mind.
- Be able to access the a styles easily.
- Have this as a main asset, maybe a nice large ad on the home page with some eye catching copy.
- Have the images small enough for quick downloads.
- etc
- Copy off other websites (with in reason of course).
- Keep it simple
- Keep accessibility in mind
- Check the website on different browsers, the best website for this is by Adobe here (You will need an Adobe ID for the website, it takes about a minute to sign up).
- Put descriptive alt tags on images, these are great for screen readers as well as for helping with search engine optimisation.
- Make sure the website complies with standards. http://www.w3.org/ amongst others cover this.
- If you feel it’s necessary, make sure the pages will print well.
Bring up the website of almost any successful company and you will see simplicity, stick with it; it’s what people expect from a website – give it to them.
A lack of consistancy causes confusion – confusion causes people to leave – leaving leads to the dark side.
Each page of a magazine usually has a different design which matches the copy on the page. This is fine because when a reader turns a page and sees a different layout and colours, they don’t assume they’ve somehow magically had their magazine swapped to a different one.
Websites are different, when a page has an unfamiliar design it can be assumed it’s a different website. When in actual fact the designer suddenly decided the navigation is better on the sidebar now – no, bad designer!
Simply put: purpose is more important that looking fancy.
This is especially true for business websites as they are there to do a job, don’t let fancy designs get in the way of the function. If you’re lucky enough to design a website for a hair dresser, that’s more of a licence to be creative and let your hair down (intended and proud).
Wether you’re a budding website designer or someone looking for a website designer you should have goals in mind. Set these out before any pixel is pushed or any HTML is written. Going back to the hair dressers example, a goal could be to download different styles to view before having your hair cut so you know exactly what to expect.
If this is the goal surely you want people to:
“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” - Albert Einstein
This is very handy when just starting out, quite simply recreate what you like from other websites; even if you don’t plan much you will find yourself adding a little bit of you as time goes on. Eventually once different aspects have been copied and tweaked you can start coming up with your own designs.
“Perfection is achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Information is everywhere which means surfers don’t hang around, and unfortunately don’t appreciate wonderful graphic design if it gets in the way of access to information or products.
This is the boring bit, but it’s important so do the following:
