The Basics of Great Website Designs
Imagine being excited about starting a new web design project only to be confronted with a white Photoshop canvas or a blank piece of paper. Design blockages are typical, but there are several basic concepts that might help you find inspiration, generate ideas, and break free from your rut.
Client Feedback
In all Web Design projects, this is by far the most significant component. While you may have a fantastic design idea, keep in mind that a lot of it is subjective. Before you do anything, get feedback from your client! Here are some of the common questions I ask all of my clients.
• What does the company represent?
• What goods or services does the company offer?
• Does the company have an existing logo or branding identity?
• What is the overall goal for the website?
• List out some competitor sites and discuss what works for them.
• Any design style or color preferences?
• What is the company’s desired target audience and demographics?
You’ll be able to conjure up some design magic and generate several rough layout sketches that meet your client’s requirements with this preliminary information in hand.
Defining Good and Bad Web Design
Communication is the most critical factor that determines whether a website succeeds or fails. You don’t want a website that “functions” but doesn’t look good or doesn’t match your client’s logo. You also don’t want to create a website that looks great but is so difficult to use that visitors can’t figure out how to get to an inside page. You should constantly try to strike a beautiful balance so that your users enjoy the design while also being interested in the content. On the web page, the main navigation menu should always be displayed, and each link/tab should have a descriptive title.
Having menu buttons that change design and show which active page/section helps your visitors understand where they are on the website and how to go deeper into it. Breadcrumbs (for example, Home > Products > Web Design Guides) are also useful for indicating the existing architecture.
Overall Website Design Cohesiveness
Even if the scope of work demands certain pages to be significantly different, strive to keep an underlying theme on all of them. You are assisting in tying in and holding the overall website design together by doing so.
Keep It Simple
The structure of most websites is relatively similar. Logos on the top left, menus in the left column or horizontally, and content as the main focus of the web page. Only a few arrangements are intuitive, despite the fact that there are many alternative ways to order the various pieces. It’s a no-brainer to keep the web page anatomy simple and intuitive.
Whitespace
Any area of a design that isn’t filled in with type or images is referred to as whitespace (or negative space). Many inexperienced web designers, as well as certain clients, feel compelled to stuff every square inch of a web page with photos or content. What they don’t comprehend is that whitespace is just as important as information on a page. The overall web design will feel crowded and unbalanced without this whitespace. The visitor will be unsure of what to concentrate on. The use of negative space allows a design to “breathe.”
The Golden Ratio and Balance
Classic design patterns like the golden ratio (divine proportion) aid in the creation of aesthetically beautiful layouts. The heavenly proportion was used solely by Renaissance artists while creating sculpture, architecture, and paintings. As a result, it stands to reason that adopting this simple and logical approach will provide us with the fundamental guidelines for creating visually appealing layouts. Always keep an eye out for your design’s overall balance. Don’t fill one column with text while leaving the adjacent column mostly empty. Make sure that the pieces on either side of a layout are logically balanced.
Unity
A unified design layout is one that functions as a whole instead of being broken down into different components. The various aspects of a design should interact in a coherent manner so that the overall design appears well-planned and ordered.
Screen Resolution
At the time of writing, the preferred fixed width layout for monitors with a resolution of 1024 x 768 was 1024 x 768. This means that you should limit the width of your layout to no more than 950 pixels. When browsing a Web Design, nothing is more irritating than having to scroll left and right.