“Design is not what it looks like but what it feels like.” You all must have heard this Steve Jobs quote. A presentable website having a simple and well-thought structure definitely performs better and gains more traffic as well as leads.
Let’s explore the web design principles that will make your website aesthetically appealing, simple-to-use, and super-engaging.
Strive for simplicity
If you over-design a website, nothing is going to work at all. Putting too many elements on the website means there will be complete chaos.
Less is more. Presentation is very important. Therefore, simplicity is something that certainly works in a website. Short and crisp sentences and innovative images are something that makes the overall website design appealing. You also should make navigation simple so that the user can navigate from one page to another effortlessly. Keep the overall design as simple as possible that is user-friendly.
Consistency matters
Consistency is something most don’t pay attention to. Your designs should be matching, color theme should be the same throughout the page. Although your fonts, sizes, heading, sub-headings have to be the same on a single web page. Finalize the font type and colors of the page, stick to it and then implement the same. You can take the help of Cascading Style Sheets for the same.
Purpose of every element
When you are finalizing, make sure every element has a reason to be there on the website. You have limited screen space and limited pages, so you have to make the most of it. You can’t afford to waste and fill-in content for the sake of it.
Every page of the website ought to have a clear purpose ensuring it helps the visitors find what they are actually looking for. Make sure there is nothing that confuses them. This will certainly help you in building a long brand-client relationship.
Readability
Content is the king. No matter how good your designs are, if the content is not keyword-centric, nothing is going to work. You should be able to successfully provide desired information to your users making them aware that you have good industrial knowledge. Use keywords, meta-data, and other SEO elements in a smart way.
Choose fonts that are easy to read. Make a proper combination of the titles, headlines, sub-headings, body texts, CTA buttons. etc. Make the overall design conversion-focused rather than highlighting the CTA with super flashy buttons like “Buy Now” or “Click Here”. Call to Action should be so good that they lead the user from point A to point B effortlessly.
Mobile responsiveness
Smartphones have become an important part of everyone’s life nowadays. If the design that you have planned for your website doesn’t work impressively on all the devices, you may be giving an advantage to your competitors. There is a number of ways that you can make your desktop design responsive and adaptive for all screen sizes. All you have to do is hire the right team of website designers for the same.
Loading speed
No one likes a website that takes a couple of minutes to load. So, you have to optimize the image size, combine code in a central CSS to reduce HTTP requests. You can also compress HTML and CSS to quicken the loading screen of your website.
Smooth navigation
Always remember that navigation is a core element of a website structure. Visitors are more likely to visit your website when there is easy navigation. You should create a logical hierarchy while designing clickable buttons. Design every page in a way that visitors get the required information in three clicks.
Consider what information has to be put together and what has to be on separate pages. But this doesn’t mean you will start creating pages unnecessarily. We advise you to create a multi-level navigation menu having appropriate keywords. This will help your customers find what they require that too at a faster pace. And yes, don’t forget to add a sitemap. This way, users will be exploring your website more.
Easy communication
The ultimate purpose why users come across your website is to get information so that they can rely on your products or services. If you are able to communicate with your readers efficiently, they are certain to purchase what you offer. So, you should smartly make good use of headline and sub-headings, divide the content into bullet points, and it everything to the point.
Wrapping Up
Developing an aesthetically appealing, mobile responsive, and functional website is not a challenging task. You should know what works and how. A crisp and user-friendly design offers you a win-win situation.
All the aforementioned principles make the overall website design effective and impressive. Without implementing them, you won’t go too far. So, what should matter the most is the essence of the website should be to clearly communicate that your business is there to solve a specific problem and it is doing that efficiently. Knowing the principles mentioned in the article makes it easier to implement everything without breaking your design.