Web designers are often concerned about their skills, like Photoshop skills or a mastery of JavaScript. However, becoming great web designer requires more than just having the right tool or a wonderful grip on design. Also, websites that are not well designed and optimized tend to perform poorly on search engines and have bad metrics (e.g. low time on site, high bounce rates, low number of pages per visit, low conversions, etc.). So what makes good web design?
1. Your logo says a lot. It needs to be professional and it needs to be really well polished. Another thing that is really important is that it links to your home page. That is because your logo is one of the most important parts of your brand, and people need link it to your company in a great light.
2. Intuitive navigation is always great. Primary navigation can sometimes be misleading and confusing, and using intuitive navigation avoids that. It’s important the links to some less important pages are placed down below, and the more important ones are placed in more prominent locations.
3. Simply things. You don’t need to put a ton of images, animations, and similar things on the website. Overloading it with images will make the website slower, it will be confusing, and people generally won’t like it that much. Your paragraphs should not be too long because the attention of people tends to disappear so keep them short and simple. A few beautiful pictures, some descriptive and informative short texts, and that’s all you need. Minimalism goes a long way.
4. It is important that you create some breathing room between the paragraphs in your texts, as well as between your images. In that way, the people reading and looking at your website will have some time to rest their minds between continuing forth. In that way, they will also be better at absorbing the information you are giving them and they will find your website more useful, because they’ll learn more from it. If there are more white spaces, they will be more focused on the actual content of the website. It will improve the user experience, and that is something you definitely want.
“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” -Milton Glaser
5. Colors are also a really important tool for web design. Using different colors gives users different thoughts about your website. If you are using colors that are mostly neutral in nature, they will create a elegant and sophisticated look for your website. Using bolder and more powerful colors in places like headings and key spots on the websites can help the people on the website find the important stuff faster.
6. The choice of font is really important. You need to chose an easily readable font, that can be easily read both on desktops and handheld devices. People are using their mobile phones more and more, and chances are, a lot of people visiting your website will do that from those hand held devices, and it’s important that they can actually read your content. For example, if you use a large font, it can be easily readable on desktops, but when somebody uses a mobile device, chances are they will have trouble reading the text. Make sure you find a balance in between the sizes of fonts, and pick the best one that will represent the website and that will be easily readable by all the users of the website.
