When it comes to website design, there are so many different styles and directions in which your website can go: it can be anywhere from classy to minimalistic, from playful and vibrant to sleek and modern.
While your final look-and-feel should exude your personal style, line of work, and brand identity, there are a few ground rules that are always applicable. Great web design feeds into your user experience and functionality, while being easy to understand at first glance. Below are five simple website design tips to help make your site effective and compelling:
1. Keep your homepage minimalistic and free of clutter.
Your website’s homepage should communicate your core message instantaneously. After all, we rarely read every word on a website. Instead, we quickly scan the page, picking out key words, sentences and images. With these known behaviors in mind, it’s better to appeal to emotions rather than word count.
These simple website design tips will help you break up your content and make for a presentable and inviting homepage design.
- Keep important content above the fold.
- Space out your content.
- Add imagery.
- Include a call-to-action.
2. Design with visual hierarchy in mind.
Hierarchy is an important principle of design that helps display your content in a clear and effective manner. Through the correct use of hierarchy, you’ll be able to lead site visitors’ attention to certain page elements in order of priority, starting with the most significant piece.
The main components of visual hierarchy are:
- Size and weight.
- Element placement.
Once you establish a clear hierarchy for your information, readers can’t help but unconsciously follow the breadcrumbs you have left for them. Then, apply color, contrast, and spacing for further accentuation, remaining mindful of what is drawing the most attention and making sure that it’s always intentional.
3. Create easy to read website content.
“Readability” measures how easy it is for people to recognize words, sentences, and phrases. When your site’s readability is high, users will be able to effortlessly scan, or skim-read through it. This way, taking in the information becomes effortless. Achieving website readability is relatively easy; try these key rules:
- Contrast is key.
- Large letter size.
- Type of fonts.
4. Ensure your site is easy to navigate.
It may be in your nature to break the mold, but website navigation is not the place to be avant-garde. After all, you want your users to easily find what they’re looking for. In addition, a site with solid navigation helps search engines index your content while greatly improving the user experience:
- Link your logo to the homepage.
- Mind your menu.
- Offer some vertical navigation.
- Work on your footer.
5. Stay mobile friendly.
All of your site visitors should be able to enjoy your professional website at its very best, no matter the device they’re browsing. Go over your site’s mobile version while putting yourself in the position of the user, and test out every page, user action and button.
Your mobile website should be cleaner and less cluttered than your desktop version, so consider minimizing page elements and scaling down some assets, like the menu.
Source: Wix.com
