The most successful websites are carefully optimized to achieve a high percentage of users. But how does a website help your business build credibility? What does web design have to do with business success?
A well-designed website creates an inviting environment for visitors to your site to explore about your company and the products and services that you offer. It can also help build trust with your potential customers as they search for a company that can provide a solution to their problem or meets their specific needs.
Familiarize yourself with the 10 principles in creating a web design that can get your information across in a simpler and more meaningful way.
1. Get rid of question marks
Good web design will not make users think or wonder and wander. People will not use your website if they can’t find their way around it. The design should be obvious and self-explanatory.
Make the navigation and site architecture simple and easy to comprehend to promote usability. Use a clear structure and visual clues to help your users find their path to their aim.
2. Keep your user requirements minimal
Provide a user-friendly web design by removing all barriers like subscriptions and registrations because they impede user navigation. The rule of thumb is the less action required from your users to test a service, the more likely they will try it out.
3. Manage to focus users’ attention
Images are always more eye-catching than any text, so as with sentences that are marked as bold are more attractive than plain text. Design the user interface of your website in a way that attracts attention more than your competitors do. Consider incorporating edges, patterns, and motions that web users can instantly recognize.
Help your users focus on specific areas of your site with moderate use of visual elements that they don’t have to think about so that they will have a better user experience.
4. Functions should be seen clearly
This is a fundamental principle of successful user interface design and it doesn’t matter how you do this. What’s important is that the content of your site is easily understood and visitors feel comfortable using the functions.
Using guidelines like 1-2-3-done-steps, large buttons with visual effects and the like are extremely effective in leading visitors through the site.
5. Use effective writing
Effective writing uses short and concise phrases that will bring the point across as quickly as possible. It also involves using a scannable web design layout with a plain and objective language.
What you mean should be what you only say. No cute words, no exaggerated statements—just get directly to the point.
6. Keep it simple
Make this your primary goal in creating your web page design. Strive for simplicity instead of complexity. Believe it or not, users prefer web designs that simply provide the information they need despite the design.
Avoid overcrowding with unnecessary content or adding advertisements and other content blocks that will result in poor user experience.
7. White space is important
White space is good in web design. It is a primary design element.
Users usually just scan through your webpage to get to the digestible pieces of information that they are looking for.
White spaces on your web design help reduce the cognitive load for your visitors and make it possible to perceive the information presented easier.
8. Use “visible language”
Aaron Marcus stated three fundamental principles of “visual language” that content users see on a screen:
- Organize. All elements on your web design should have the concepts of consistency, screen layout, relationships, and navigability.
- Economize. Consider these four major points: simplicity, clarity, distinctiveness, and emphasis.
- Communicate. Successfully communicate by matching your web design presentation to the capabilities of your users. Keep a balance of legibility, readability, typography, symbolism, multiple views, color, and texture.
9. Conventions are very useful
Follow users’ expectations by using a conventional web design where your users don’t have to figure out how things work on your site. Steve Krug suggested that it is better to innovate only when you know you really have a better idea. So if you’re not sure, stick to conventions that match your users’ expectations.
10. Use the Test Early, Test Often principle
If you want a great website, you’ve got to test. The process? Design something, test it, fix it, and then design again. Usability tests always produce useful results that will help you fix design flaws early on.
The Usability and Utility of a Web Design
The internet has proven to be a more significant source of information. Thanks to the millions of websites on the internet that provide information on every single topic area. Create your web design to bring the information across through meaningful user experience. Remember that it is the usability and the utility, not the visual design, that determines the success or failure of a website.