Web Design

Ultimately, the goal of any Web page is communication. You are trying to communicate through words, pictures, and layout your site or company's goals. This might be information or it might be to sell something, but you have to communicate to be successful.

Design is all about communication. When you're a designer, you're not an artist first and foremost (even if you thought you were), you're a communicator. Sure, it would be nice if you could create works of art for your Web pages. But most of us don't have the time or the need. Instead, what you need are concrete rules to follow so that your pages look good and get their message across.

Basic Rules for Design

Every element on the page needs a purpose. If you put an image on the page or a block of text or a line, there should be a reason for it to be there. If the reason is something like \"because I like it\" take it off. Your design elements are part of your design to communicate the message of the page. Anything that doesn't contribute to that message should be dispensed with.
Don't make your customers struggle. Your fonts should be a legible size and a reasonable scan length (no more than 7-10 words on a line). If your customers have to struggle to read your page, they won't. And they won't be your customers.
Make it obvious what's important on the page. Use styled heading tags to call out the important sections of your pages and use images to highlight important features.
Use the best images possible, the fewer the better. One awesome image will do more to enhance your message than three mediocre ones. And simple styled text will go further than one poor image.
Visual aids communicate more quickly than blocks of text. Tables, charts, and graphs are easier to grasp quickly than a block of text. And readers of Web pages are typically in a hurry.
Don't be afraid to be bold. Hesitant design, whether it's colors or layout, makes the customer feel hesitant as well. Make your sites stand out so they're memorable.
Simple designs have more punch than complicated ones. A one- or two-column layout is easier for your customers to grasp than multiple columns.
Sometimes you need to hire a professional. If you're creating something that needs to last a long time, hiring a professional designer, brand manager, or marketing guru will help make sure that you get the best possible site.

The Science of Web Design and Website Usability

Many people get into Web design and development because they secretly want to be designers. Think about it, when you first found the TextArt in Word, you fell in love. Every one of your documents had to have some fancy coding and pretty text or images, even if it was just the color of the text.

HTML and Web Development gives people who would normally be programmers working with code a chance to be more visually creative, and this is fun.

But there can be a science behind Web design. Your choice of font and the width of your page shouldn't just be based on "what you like". Follow these simple steps to be more scientific in your Web design:

Usability Testing

Usability testing can be as elaborate or simple as you need, but no matter whether you have your mom look at your pages or do a complete usability test scenario, you should have someone not familiar with your site look at it. If you can, try to be in the room while they test. Watch what they click on and what they ignore. If they're ignoring your buy button and you've created an ecommerce site this is a serious problem.

Browser testing

Never assume that because it looks fine in your favorite browser, that it will look fine in every other one. This also includes the same browser on another operating system. Check your web page on every combination of browser and OS that you can get your hands on.

Learn from Desktop Publishing and Established Design Principles

Many new Web designers have never had any formal training in design and end up trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to layout and style rules. Line lengths for readability, colors for emphasis, and margins for look are all basic principles of DTP and can be translated to the Web.

Use your log files

Log files can be very tedious, but the are a valuable tool for designers. Get a good log analysis tool and use it to find out thing like:

where people go from your front page
what they click on the most
what pages are least successful

Once you have this information, you can modify your site to lead your customers where you want them to go.

Don't be afraid to redo

One of the biggest advantages to the Web is how easy it is to make changes. If you create a design and later it doesn't work as well as you'd planned, then change it.

Designing a Web site is a lot of fun, but bringing some structure and science into the design will help you create a page that your customers will find beautiful and usable.

By Jennifer Kyrnin

WEB DESIGN