11 Rules For Good Website Design

By Author: Grace Alexa
Total Articles: 120
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A website is the stepping stone for a company that aims to present itself to a global audience and make it easy for its targeted market to find it. If you plan to have a website for your business, it is important to incorporate all the crucial factors that make the website not only visually appealing but also user-friendly.

Your website must be found easily on the search engines so that your expansive target audience can reach to you. Moreover, the website design has to have a magnetic charm that attracts visitors, retains them, compels them to return and eventually turns them into customers. In order to have a good and successful website design, you should abide by the following rules:

1.Simplicity is the key- This may be the most repeated suggestion for website designers, yet most of them tend to ignore this web design rule. For the sake of being unique and innovative, they tend to make the website more complex. Having a creative design is good as long as the website looks actually like a site and not just a colour book. Similarly, the design should be simple but not bland.

2.Content is supreme- The content ...
... of a website makes or breaks it. While fancy images, Flash and other attractive elements might hold the attention of the visitor for some time, but until and unless there is strong, to-the-point content present on the website, no one would stay on the website for long. The content writer should focus on providing valuable and updated information about the company, its products, services and other crucial details.

3.Navigation has to be easy and user-friendly- The navigation of the website is another crucial factor in determining whether the web design is good or bad. It can be vertical, horizontal or vertical and horizontal, depending on the design, but it should be clear and comprehensible for the end users.

4.It should be search-engine friendly- This one is understandable because until and unless your website features prominently on search engines, your chances of getting the desired recognition are dubious. The web design must comply to the norms of search engine optimisation such as keyword targeting. Without having a search-engine friendly web design, your website has great chances of getting lost in the field of millions of similar websites.

5.Should have cross-browser compatibility- No longer do the web users only surf on IE. There are several other browsers that have joined the bandwagon. It would be unwise for a designer to create a website design that is compatible only with a certain browser and shows problems in others. Cross-browser compatibility is vital for a website to be accessed by a large number of people.

6.Give the visitors a reason to return- There has to be some unique element in your web design that should compel the visitors to revisit the site. Be it the content, images or any other factor in the website- the visitors must feel like returning to the site and take some positive action.

7.Colour choice is crucial- The choice of colour in the website design is also important in making the website visually appealing. It is the visual appeal of the website that determines the first impression on the visitors. Images and colours used in the design should be such that they are neither too bright nor too dull and should complement the theme of the website and the company’s services.

8.Errors should be checked- A website that has too many errors always leaves a wrong impression. The website designer should be careful in testing the site often and checking the errors regularly.

9.It should load fast- The load speed of the website should be good enough so that the visitor doesn’t have to wait too long for the site to open. The designer should not use too much of Flash or any other tool that can increase the load speed of the website.

10.It should not be cluttered- Sensible use of white space is another very significant factor that determines the success of a website design. If the designer adds too much information or images, no matter how useful they may seem, the visitor would never be able to get the actual message. Thus, the designer must maintain a good balance between the content and white space to make it readable and comprehensible.

Website design basics and Graphic design basics (both the genres are closely related and so knowledge about them would be beneficial for both type of designers), Website design and graphic design are two different experiences and require different sets of skills. Web design skills include HTML, CSS and JavaScript.