Website Design 101: 9 Basic Principles to Follow
Sometimes, coming up with a good website design can be stressful and overwhelming. It requires a lot of research, dedication, and sacrifice. There are many websites out there, but a few of them are actually good. Most of them don’t add any value to the users.
Currently, most people spend their time online. The Internet has become the best place to do shopping, as well as reading articles. Even learning has gone online, with most learning institutions providing online education to both the local and abroad students. This means that the Internet has become part of human lives, and there’s a need to design a website that meets the users’ needs.
In this article, you’ll learn about all the vital website design principles you must consider when designing your website. Read through to know why you need to understand these principles and find out why they’re essential.
1. Purpose
When designing your business website, it should be able to meet the needs of the users. One way to ensure you meet the users’ needs is by having a clear purpose that it aims to address.
This can be achieved by having clear intentions on your website pages to help the visitors interact with your website without hassle. Your website should be able to fulfill the needs of your website users.
2. Consistency
Consistency is one of the essential aspects you must consider when designing your website. Be sure to match the elements on all pages. For instance, ensure the headings, fonts, sizes, and button styles are the same throughout all the website pages. You can achieve that by having a good plan. Once you’ve decided on the font size and color, be sure to be consistent in all the website developmental stages.
3. Simplicity
Your website should be simple to use to help your visitors navigate your website and easily access the information they’re looking for. Simplicity helps improve your website user experience.
One of the most important aspects of a website design that makes it simple and attractive to the users is the color. You can use a particular color to communicate specific information. Also, using a color that best suits your business brand will help influence your audience’s behavior.
4. Navigation
When designing your website, you must make it simple for the users to navigate through. Navigation refers to how easy someone can move around the website to help them take action. It also helps you retain website visitors.
You can make your website navigation easier by designing clickable buttons and making it easier for users to return to the home page. If your website navigation is complex, visitors might leave your site for other alternatives.
5. Typography And Readability
Even if your website is attractive and appealing, it won’t retain visitors if its texts are poorly written. Texts provide the desired information to the users and should be well formatted to make them readable.
Apart from making your texts appealing and readable, be sure to include some keywords for SEO purposes. Also, ensure you include content with a catchy heading, and its meta description should be unique. Finally, use font sizes that are easier to read.
6. Speedy Load Time
The time it takes for your website to load the required information influences the user’s experience. Even if your site has a clear purpose and the texts are readable, it might not be of any help if it takes ages to load.
The fact is that, with most people having busy daily schedules, they won’t waste their time on a slow-loading website. So, if you want to meet the expectations of your website users, you must improve the loading time of your website.
7. Mobile Optimization
In the past, most websites were optimized for desktop computers only. Today, a website that isn’t mobile-optimized or mobile-friendly might fail to attract or retrain much of the traffic visiting the site. This is because most people use mobile devices to access online services.
Only a small percentage uses desktop computer to access the Internet. So, to be on the safe side, ensure your website is available on both mobile devices and desktop computers.
8. Communication
People visit your website because they want to get specific information. Your website should, therefore, be able to communicate with the visitors so that they can be able to spend more time on your website and, probably, take action, such as to send requests or buy from you.
You can ensure your site is communicating to the users by organizing your information in a way that’s easy to read and understand.
9. Visual Hierarchy
Visual hierarchy refers to how elements are arranged on the website in terms of their importance. This aspect is used to establish a focal point that directs the audience where to get the information they might be looking for. These elements can be arranged in terms of size or color.
Takeaway
Having an understanding of the above website design principles can help you stay ahead of the competition. It’s only by designing your website in a friendly manner that you can think of succeeding in your business.
Having a purpose, being consistent, and making things simple will help your visitors navigate your website easily, find the information they require and engage with your business. All these will help generate more revenues in the long run.
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