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Sometimes, web design might seem like a little magic, especially for the inexperienced. An inexperienced Elements of Web Design may know what constitutes a good site, but creating such a site from scratch is unusual.
The ultimate goal of every site designer is to discover that sweet spot where innovation meets creativity meets commercial savvy as they sift through bubbling liquids, complicated instruments, and the never-ending conversions between RGB hues and hex codes. If the mad scientist is successful, he or she will enjoy a lifetime of glory and wealth, but if they fail, they will be doomed to a life of frustration and endless experimentation.
Unlocking a powerful design for your website, whether brand new or already in existence, can feel like a type of alchemy. You can find a professionally designed theme or template for just about any commercial or artistic goal, but it never seems to have all the right ingredients.
Designing a website is a complex, perplexing, and sometimes frustrating process. Still, it’s well worth the effort if you want to attract the correct audience and convert them into paying customers.
There is more to modern website design than just how it looks; it may also affect your search engine optimization and rankings, how your audience feels about your brand, and what they do when they visit your site. The look and feel of your site significantly impact how successful you are online.
Starting from scratch, revamping your ever-evolving fixer-upper, or sifting through an unending supply of templates, there are a few standard procedures and staples that should always be on hand. In this article, we’ll go through the fundamentals that, when applied correctly, can make your internet company and design aspirations a reality.
Initiate the Technical Preparations Yourself, or Have Your Host Manage Them
You probably think picking the proper color scheme and images is the most important part of web design. You are not completely wrong, though. We’re merely taking a broader look at how design might affect and enhance your site’s user experience.
If people aren’t able to access your site or they leave too quickly, it won’t matter how beautiful the design is. Regardless of demographics, consumers on the internet tend to be impatient: about a third of them have a one-second threshold for when a site is considered “ready to view,” and nearly half have a two-second threshold. You’re more likely to lose that customer permanently any time after that.
Sites that don’t load at all are the same. The Ponemon Institute estimates that every minute a company’s website is down due to a problem with the data center, the company loses $9,000. Nearly 75% of visitors will click away if a site takes less than five seconds to load.
When you sign up with a reputable web host, you get instant relief from all those problems. High-performance solid-state drives, like the kind used by DreamHost, are at least 200% faster than conventional hard disc drives and are therefore used in our servers. An additional critical metric for gauging dependability is uptime guarantees. DreamHost is one of the few hosting companies that guarantees your website will be accessible online at all times; if it is ever down for more than an hour, we will pay you back for an entire day of service.
The 6 Essential Elements of a Website
We can now dive into design details like the color scheme, typeface, CTA buttons, white space, and menus. A website’s design, development, and owner may take slightly different approaches, but a universal set of considerations should be made.
Although there are some well-established guidelines to follow, the true beauty of web design lies in the fact that it is an art form and not a science. Be bold in your design choices so that they stand out, but make sure you can undo any mistakes.
The next step is to flip the page in your sketchbook and begin creating! Here are six aspects of design that you should focus on perfecting.
The Design and Visual Appearance as a Whole
The visual style of your site is, of course, quite important. These generic terms encompass the spectrum of feelings you hope a website visitor may experience. Because of the importance of making a good first impression, you should strive to wow your intended audience as soon as their browser window starts. In that brief time, users will create an opinion about your website or company and decide whether or not to continue engaging with it.
Tones and Colors
Now we get to the parts you most anticipated when you first started reading. Most beginning designers start with selecting a color scheme and a set of fonts to use throughout the site. Your preparation thus far has laid a solid foundation, and we’re confident that you’ll achieve even more success than with just Roy G. Biv.
If you consider your brand’s or industry’s perspective and the demographics of your intended audience, selecting a color scheme will be easier. The human eye can perceive approximately 7 million colors, so you should constantly look for strategies to reduce your focus.
Finally, typography
The font(s) you use to convey your message should follow the same guidelines as the target audience and the industry in which it operates. We imagine the photographer would pick a very light and airy sans serif (no extra parts) typeface. In contrast, more formal occupations like lawyers and accountants would stick with distinguishing serif fonts (which have the extra bits hanging off at the end of letters).
You must strike a balance between the familiar and the novel in the site’s design and layout. Fans of the good design won’t need to guess whether you’re using Arial or Times New Roman. Try to find something that stands out from the crowd, but don’t even think of using Comic Sans.
Body copy should ideally be at least 16 pixels in size to ensure readability. Use a contrasting font for headings and accents; however, don’t use more than three different fonts or make arbitrary alterations to the font sizes.
Naturally, you’ll want to ensure enough contrast between your text and the site’s background colors, which usually means a light color mixed with a dark tone — stay away from the glaring red font on the green backdrop combination.
Direction Finding
The menu bar is not the place to experiment creatively with your site’s design. First, don’t get sucked in by fancy, distracting hover effects and sub nav with too many levels. Navigational elements, which can appear anywhere on a website, including the header, main content area, and footer, are there to help users quickly find the information they need.
To hamburger or not to hamburger? It is a design question that will divide website owners right from the off. The hamburger menu (iconized by three horizontal lines) is a space-saving tool that moves the site’s navigation to the side. But it hides important details and interactions from your visitors, leading to reduced click rates.
Material
You’re not done once you’ve decided on a layout, color scheme, typefaces, and decorative elements, just as interior designers don’t stop once the walls are painted. Attention to the interplay between your messaging and design means you can finally bring in the couch and hang up the family photos.
Customers and site visitors expect answers to their questions fast; how reliable is your brand? Experienced? are you able to provide first-rate services and goods? People form opinions about you very quickly. Therefore you must say what you mean. The information provided must be readily understandable.
Inspect each phrase carefully and ask yourself if you truly require it. Using as few words as possible is of the utmost importance since unnecessary fluff might detract from your brand’s strongest selling qualities. Use headings and display text to divide your work into digestible chunks and educate the reader about its purpose. Break up lengthy lists into sorted or unordered lists rather than utilizing long, winding sentences. Just keep it simple and direct.
Keep Mobile in Mind
Phew! Our efforts to create a modern, concise, and user-friendly website are nearly complete. Ready to start over, this time with a lower scale.
There has been no slowdown in the growth of mobile web traffic since it first surpassed desktop traffic five years ago.
Google’s mobile-first index, used to determine where websites ranked in search results, was established nearly six years ago to better serve users accessing websites from mobile devices. Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics to gauge how well your site delivers a quality user experience, will be released by the search engine in May 2021. Google is more likely to increase your site’s rating if users have a positive experience when browsing it, regardless of their device.
All this is just a long way of saying that mobile-friendly websites are no longer a nice-to-have.
If you purchase a WordPress theme or template from a developer, it will already optimized for mobile users. However, suppose you’re creating a custom design or working with a web designer. In that case, you’ll need to ensure you’re covered by one of two main options. A responsive template that adapts to different screen sizes or a mobile-only design that kicks in when. A device that isn’t a desktop computer attempts to access your site.
- Hire a Team to Create a Brand-New, Stunning Website for You
- Now that you know what makes a good website, it’s time to start putting it together!
DreamHost’s drag-and-drop WP Website Builder makes it simple for beginners to set up a fully functional website in no time. On the other hand, our Custom Website Design service is the way to go. If you want a sleek, WordPress-based site that is unique to your business.
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