Building a website is what every Tom, Dick and Harry can do. But building a very attractive website requires some basic knowledge of the essential tools that are needed to build great websites. It should also be noted that having the technical skills to handle web design is not enough to build to the satisfaction of your clients and viewers. In view of this, I have decided to give you the list of
10 useful web design tips that will help you to be one of the best web designers around.
10 Web Design Tips You Must Know
- Have a plan: Before you pick up your PC and start putting your web design skills to use, it is very important to take some hours or days to plan what the website is all about and how best to approach its design.This will save you from having to start all over again when you hit a brick wall during the coding process. This is so because having a plan before coding will help you to know the tools that you need and how to make them available to you for use. You can also use style guide to get this done. This is what is used in publishing companies to make their productions keep to the same format. It can also be used when a team of web designers are on a project so that each member of the team will know what the objective is so that all of them will work towards the same goal and the same format. Before starting out on your design, you may have to draw your plans on a piece of paper or use a whiteboard to draw the outlines of the project so as to know what is required of you.
- Limit the use of sidebars: Sidebars are intended to help viewers to be able to navigate through a website or a blog easily. They are originally designed to give readers access to popular posts and recent posts as well, making reading them easier. When a blog or website is over populated with sidebars though, it becomes a nuisance. Imagine if you are interested in an article and you want to read it on a blog or website only to be "attacked" by tons of sidebars. What will you do? Most readers will use the "Close" button instantly and move on to another site. The point is that you should not bombard your site with too much sidebars but use them sparingly and meaningfully to enhance the beauty of your site, not hide it.
- Use the right font sizes: Gone are the days when accessing websites are done through desktop computers with their large screens. Today, must readers access sites through mobile devices. It is a very good idea then to look at the type of font and the size that will make readers on both PCs and mobile devices to feel at ease reading your posts without putting unnecessary stress on their eyes. So use the right font sizes for the body, header and other parts of the site where necessary to make readability easy for users irrespective of the device used. This will make readers to be able to focus your contents instead of struggling with the texts.
- Make it responsive: This is a very useful tip for improving your web design skills. A responsive website is a website that will have a good effect on the viewer whether checking the website on his laptop or on his mobile phone. The content and the design of such a site will not be affected by external factors such as the medium through which it is viewed. It is very important to note that about 80% of web surfers these days access website through mobile devices like iPad, iPhone, tabs and the likes. Of what benefit will it be if your website is great when viewed on a PC but turns out to be a trash when viewed on mobile devices? It is very important for web designers to focus more on websites that will look good irrespective of whom the viewer is or on what device he/she is browsing from. There are useful tips to making a website responsive. Check them here
- Regularly update your tools: To design a website, a lot of tools will be used. Most of these tools are softwares and other important tools. It is important for a designer to always look out for the latest software or technology that will simplify his work without compromising quality. The essence of this is that the designer will always be abreast of latest tools so that he/she will have no excuse when clients make a demand. For instance, a couple of years back, designers depended on Flash for most of the animation that they did. The question now is that how many designers today still make use of Flash? If other designers are moving away from a particular tool because it is outdated and not as effective as others, why should you stick to it out of ignorance? What if a client makes a request or a design that you think is not possible because of the tools you have and others can handle it without stress? What impression are you giving such a customer? He/she will see you as an incompetent designer who doesn't know what he is doing. In a nutshell, update your knowledge and your tools.That will make you look professional and you will have something to show for that.
- Don't use sliders: A lot of people believe that having a slider on a site makes it attractive and appealing. While that may be true, it has been found out that sliders do more harm than good when it comes to its contribution to the overall performance of a site. How? Some professional web designers have used Pingdom to carry out series of tests on the loading speed of sites with sliders and ones without it. What was the result? It was found out that the sites without sliders loaded faster than those with sliders. We all know what will be the effect of a page that loads slowly on the users. Most of them will log out of the site straight away and open another site. You will definitely not want to jeopardize the efficiency of your site all because you want to add a slider.
- Use A/B testing: Using this resolves any choice conflict between designers and clients. Check this scenario. Your client wants you to place sliders on his website and you as a designer knows the disadvantages of doing so, how will you convince him to give up what he so much desires. A/B testing will help you resolve that without getting on the nerves of your client. By using A/B testing, your client will personally decide to give up on an idea that will not contribute to the success of the site in the long run. So, avoid that ugly disagreement with your client by making him see reasons why he has to jettison an idea, carry out A/B testing. Using the image below, no reasonable client will still go ahead with option B when he realizes that going with option B will affect the performance of his site negatively.Courtesy: www.shutterstock.com
- Keep the social icons in the background: Do you now that you can send people away from your website? Imagine showing users the exit door immediately they are coming through the entrance! Impossible? OK. Think of this scenario. A user logins to your site and the first thing he sees is a social media icon. Feeling the urge to find out what is going on there, he clicks on the button and he is taken to the social platform. On getting there, he sees an old friend. One thing leads to another and they are absorbed in long stories of their escapades. Before knowing it, the user has forgotten about your site and he is happily engaged in socializing with another person. What did you just do? You showed him the exit door as he was coming in. You are not advised to do without social media icons, rather you are advised to be discrete in its use. It is better to put them in the footer where they will be seen when the user is through with his mission so as not to serve as a distraction
- Learn to use white space: White space? What does that mean? It simply means that you don't pack too much information on the home page. During the course of designing, put only the necessary information on the home page while other information should be put in a link in the menu bar. This will allow users to have a good look of the site. Packing too much information on the front page will not be ideal.
- Use the ideal Content Management System: No matter how skillful you are, using the ideal CMS will definitely enhance your web design skills and professionalism. It is ideal, therefore, to review the good CMSs available so as to be able to make the right choice. Click here to see my review on the 3 most popular CMSs, Joomla, WordPress and Drupal.
I have tried as much as possible to compile these 10 useful web design tips on how to build great websites. Perhaps there are other useful tips that you know, you can tell us in the comment box below
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment