Many people who are new to web design assume that visual design determines the success or downfall of a website. However, usability and functionality are two things that should be considered.
For a profit-oriented and successful web design, you will need a user-centric design. After all, the site visitors are responsible for clicking the mouse and deciding for everything. If they fail to use the features, it would be better if you will just eliminate them.
If you aim for a great, effective web design, then make sure that it can fulfill the intended function by conveying the message and engaging the site visitors. Once you achieve a well-designed website, building trust and guiding visitors will follow.
Great user experience requires you to ensure that your web design is optimized for functionality or how it is used and usability or aesthetics and form. In order for you to master web design, take the following design principles into consideration:
Never Make Your Users Think
Remember Krug’s first law of usability? Your website page needs to be self-explanatory and obvious. Your job when creating a site is to eliminate questions on the users’ minds.
If you fail to incorporate the intuitive aspect into the site architecture and navigation, the questions of the users will grow. Not only that, but it would also be more difficult for them to comprehend the way the system works. So, make sure to provide them easy to recognize links and moderate visual clues so that the users can find the path they are aiming for with ease.
Never Squander the Patience of Your Users
Keep the user requirements minimal in every time you offer your visitors with a product or service. If you keep the required action less for testing what you offer, there’s a bigger chance that random visitors will try it out.
Keep in mind that most first-time visitors are more likely to play with the offer rather than filling out web account forms. Why? Because they think that these accounts cannot be used in the future. So, the best thing you can do is to just let them explore your site along with discovering your offerings. Forcing them to sign up or give their email address is never reasonable to test the feature.
Bang Away to Highlight Your Feature
Large buttons, 1-2-3-done-steps, and visual effects are several elements that make modern web designs being criticized. These elements, from a design perspective, are in fact not a bad idea. In fact, these guidelines are effective in leading the user through your site in a user-friendly and very straightforward manner.
Just let the visitors see what functions are available to your site. As long as your visitors feel comfortable and the content can be easily understood, they will continue interacting with the system.
Capture the User’s Attention
Compared to texts, images tend to be more eye-catching. For instance, marking sentences as bold makes them more attractive than keeping the text plain. Mind that most web users are more likely to recognize motions, patterns, and edges. From a marketing perspective, video-based ads are effective in capturing the attention of the users.
If you focus the attention of the users on a particular area of your site along with moderate visual elements, you are actually helping them to get from point a to point B even without how they can do it. Meaning, the less they need to think, the better the user experience they will get.
Aim for Simplicity
The principle “Keep it simple” should be your site’s primary goal. Users are looking for information rather than to enjoy the design. So, avoid complexity and strive for simplicity.
Most visitors consider a site design to be the best if there is a pure text. So, make sure that there are no content blocks or advertisements. You need to provide them a web page with a user-friendly print-version to ensure a good user experience.
Consider the Use of Effective Writing
Adjusting the writing style according to the browsing habits of the users is essential since the web is far different from the print. Users are not into exaggerated language, promotional writing, keywords in italics or marked in bold, or long text blocks with no images.
For effective writing, you can use short, concise phrases, scannable layout, and plain and objective language. Besides, you need to avoid using unfamiliar technical names, company-specific names, marketing-induced names, or cute names when talking business.
Never Underestimate the White Space
Other than reducing the cognitive load for users, white space is also effective in perceiving the information presented on the screen. Oftentimes, first-time visitors scan the page and then divide the content to get easy to digest pieces of information.
Bear in mind that complex structures are more challenging to analyze, scan, read, and work with. Make sure to separate two design segments by some white space, instead of a visible line. According to Simon’s law, hierarchy structures are effective in reducing complexity. If you want your content to be perceived easier, then give your visitors a sense of visual hierarchy.
Never Forget to Use Conventions
One of the best ways to make your website not boring is by using conventional design. Conventions will help you reduce the need to determine how things work.
Using conventions helps you gain the trust, reliability, and confidence of the users. It can also prove how credible you are. With conventions, it’s a lot easier for you to understand what your visitors expect from search placement, text structure, site navigation, among others. Once you apply conventions effectively, users can get the “not-too-specific” objective, regardless of the understanding of the message.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that the customer’s habit in a store is different from the user’s habit on the web. Most users look for something useful, interesting, and clickable. If your page fails to meet their expectation, they will click the back button and search for other pages.
When you keep the above principles, you can develop a useful and functional web design.
Workspace computer with web design site -DepositPhotos
