Have Pleasant Visuals
As a web user, we are certain that you have all come across websites that have
unappealing visuals - as a result of which you would have shied away from using
the site itself. For example, let us take a look at two such confusing websites we have found.
At a glance, it is evident that this site has a mixture of dominant colors
that are hard to look at. Although there is a little contrast, the mix of colors
like purple, black, red, and blue does not complement each other in this display.
Hence, it shows that the website has been designed with less knowledge about the
disciplines, and also minimal focus on usability.
Although this website does not use an unsuccessful mixture of dominant colors,
its dull display makes it hard for the user to understand the hierarchy of the
web content and what to focus on.
So what can help you to avoid both these issues and develop a quality design?
To be honest, this all depends on a few steps that are not even complicated to
process. Let us take a look.
- Define a clear goal for the website being designed. This goal can vary based
on your requirements. For instance, it can be to increase site reach, to
boost the conversion rate, or even to achieve high interactivity.
- Define what you are focusing on. For instance, it can be on food,
groceries, sports, fashion, etc.
- Choose a color palette for your website. This might include a choice
of colors for your organization’s logo, font, background, and so on.
- Structure the website content such that it accommodates the pre-defined
goal of your website.
Practicing the above steps in designing your website is guaranteed to bring
about a better design for your site. But do note that the above steps are
not hard and fast rules, therefore, you can decide to play around and figure
out what fits you best.
However, there are a few general rules that would further enhance your website design.
Visual Hierarchy
The visual hierarchy law claims that the size of an object and the colors used
for it is an indication of the importance the particular element bears on your website.
For instance, the larger elements on your website are considered to be more important,
and this importance decreases along with the size of the elements. The same goes for
the colors as well. The brighter the colors are, the more important these elements are
considered to be.
The best example to discuss the visual hierarchy is Instagram - the
popular social media platform
that focuses on image and video sharing.
When looking at the above, you can see that the main focus is provided to the brand name
itself. Afterward, they have emphasized the large image on the screen following the
“Log in with Facebook” button. Analyzing the positioning of the buttons tells us that
they have focused more on encouraging users to sign in through their Facebook account
itself, rather than creating separate credentials all over again.
Thus, little things like this visual hierarchy would be huge in communicating with
your users. So do make it a point to accommodate these rules to your website design
process as well.
Golden Ratio
The Golden Ratio technique is quite an old design pattern that is YET practiced in
the modern world as web
designers have researched and found out that it is quite effective.
So what is this golden ratio?
Well, this pattern is what the golden ratio is all about. Chances are that you have
seen this pattern before, might be in the natural environment, or even on other
websites as well.
Renowned psychologists have claimed that this golden ration pattern is significantly
appealing to the human brain and this is why most websites follow this design technique.
Hence, do focus on this content layout when coming up with a design for your website.
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds comes into play when aligning images on your website. This rule implies
that the images of a site should be placed in line with 9 boxes derived by plotting your
site area into 9 grids - which are considered to be the most catchy points of a website.
When fitting your images to this grid, make sure that the interactive points of the
images are aligned to the areas of intersection as circled by red in the following image.
At the same time, do not overdo the images on your website and cramp the space.
Select appropriate images that compliment each other and include them without
compacting your website.
Law of Similarity
As implied by the phrase itself, this rule claims that similar components need to
have similar outlooks so that the user will know that they all fit into the same
category. For instance, look at the following layout obtained from the Slack website.
The red lines along with the 3 elements following the same design layout tell the
user that these 3 components on the website are related - that they are Slack brands
and are different from the neighboring elements of the site.
1. Optimize the site loading speed
With the evolvement of technology and related networking facilities, users have become
more demanding in terms of the experience they receive through websites. And among such
demands, the website loading speed has become crucial. This is because site visitors
perceive the websites that take a long time to load as “ineffective” or “low-quality”.
To be exact, if your website takes more than 2 to 3 seconds, chances are that you would
be losing a significant reach.
The cruciality of the website loading speed is well explained by the following facts
put forward by the renowned software company Unbounce.
- A site that takes even 0.1 seconds more to load loses nearly 7% of conversions
- Sites that take around 5 seconds to load have a bounce rate that is 5
times more than a site that takes only 2 seconds
- Nearly 73% of users experience the inconvenience brought about
by longer loading speeds
Therefore, website loading speed is something you can no longer overlook.
2. Improve the visibility of the website
When it comes to improving the visibility of websites, the core focus is generally
placed on search engine optimization. Popularly known as SEO, this approach focuses
on optimizing sites such that they rank better on search engine results pages (SERPs).
For instance, imagine that you are an Italian Restaurant owner in Toronto. If a
user was to look for Italian Restaurants in Toronto, on any search engine, you
would want your restaurant's official website to be on the very top of the results
page that is displayed to the user. This is where SEO comes into play.
SEO involves diverse techniques that optimize your website which help to structure
and enhance your site in order to be on the very top of the search engine results.
This increased visibility for your website will be a huge driving force for increasing
the organic reach of the site and thereby would bring about better results for
your organization.
When talking about improved visibility, social media links should also be
emphasized. This is owing to the fact that having active social media profiles
linked to your site is also a catalyst for increasing visibility. After all,
in a world where social media has become a part and parcel of life, this does
not come as a surprise, right?
3. Policy and regulation compliance
With the advancement of technology and the related disciplines, we have also witnessed a
rise in the number of threats and risks posed in the online world. As a result,
most governing bodies worldwide have introduced many rules and regulations that
overlook the security of online platforms and the privacy of its users.
The General Data Protection Regulation, well-known by its acronym GDPR, is
quite popular among these rules and regulations. According to GDPR,
any online platform that collects data from its users has to be made secure.
Obtaining a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is one of the most
common methods that is approached to securing platforms. Hence,
when deploying your own website, do make it a point to obtain an
SSL certificate for your site.
4. Incorporate Customer Feedback
Social proof, or better known as customer feedback, has become increasingly
useful when it comes to the online world. This is because the feedback
provided by the real users of your products or service can persuade
others to go ahead with your particular product or service. This is owing
to the fact that genuine reviews from users could build up the confidence
of potential customers.
Hence, incorporating customer feedback is a smart strategy that could
be leveraged in the modern world. When designing your website, allocate
a catchy area to publish the ratings and reviews of your users such that
any visitor to the site would be able to see it.
5. Enhanced Accessibility
Accessibility is a core fundamental of
web designing
as it can make or break your website in the online sphere. For instance,
as attractive and catchy as bright colors may look to you, it might not be the
best option for everyone. The most ideal example for this is the large number of
people who suffer from photophobia and seizures. For such users, bright colors may
bring about unfavorable health conditions.
Thus, when devising a design for your website, do keep in mind the diverse user groups
you may find within your target audience. Think of their physical capabilities,
psychological capabilities, and even their computer literacy. This might assist
you in developing a high-quality website that is accessible for a much wider user group.
6. Enhanced Usability
Usability, or how user-friendly your site is, is once again very important for websites.
At the end of the day, your user reach can either upgrade or degrade based on the
user experience you provide through your website.
When focusing on the usability of a website, the following are a few questions
(not limited to) that you could ask yourself during the design process.
- Is the website mobile-responsive?
- Does the content follow a smart layout
- How comfortable is it to navigate through your site?
- Does the website provide a live-chat facility?
- Does the website have an effective search function?
- Is your color palette easy to the eyes?
7. Scalability of the website
The scalability of a website relates to handling user traffic as it may not always be
stable. For instance, think of an
eCommerce platform that suddenly puts up a good offer for its
customers. Once the offer is made public, the website would experience a sudden
spike in its site visitors as you would find both current and potential customers
trying to access the online store. In such a scenario, the website has to be able
to successfully manage the user experience without any glitches.
8. Easy Maintainability
With the continuous changes made to both technology and business requirements, more
often than not websites required upgrades. Thus, from the very beginning of the web
development process, you need to ascertain that the site is maintainable with minimal
hassle. This is not a hard task for content management systems such as WordPress or
Joomla, but when building a bespoke website you may need to input more focus. The
following are some such factors you can query your developer if you were to
develop your site.
Do they follow best practices for development such as modularized program
files, comments, and readable code?
- Do they provide understandable and complete user manuals?
- Do they offer followup services for any potential failures and issues?
Thus, do focus on the above principles to design a quality website. Although
there are no hard and fast rules, the above will definitely make a positive
difference to your online presence.
