The majority of web design lessons learn by practical application; learning is an iterative process, and there is no better way to learn than to make mistakes (and then and learning from them). Professional web and app development company always follow best practices and procedures to reduce the chances of error to bare minimum. Here are some of the signs that your website is designed by a novice designer.
10 Fundamental Pointers That Any Aspiring Web Designer Should Be Aware Of.
1. Web graphics should be optimized for faster page loads
By choosing the right format and making sure that it’s as small as it can be, discover how to optimize your web graphics. Even though more individuals are switching to broadband connections, dial-up internet connections are still widely use. Additionally, having slow page loads owing to large picture file sizes can put users off, given the rise of mobile device technologies that don’t always offer broadband-like speeds.
2. Keep it Simple and Clean
A good web design should be user-friendly in addition to being aesthetically pleasing. A web design that is clear and uncomplicated usually results in one that is highly usable and easy to navigate. You run the danger of diverting website visitors from the website’s aim by having too many website features and components on a page.
Additionally, even if it would be fantastic to develop a novel idea or interface design pattern for your website, make sure that the layout is still user-friendly and accessible. People are used to typical website features, interaction patterns, and web interfaces; if your design is truly unique, make sure it isn’t overly cryptic and perplexing. Be original, but keep it straightforward.
Another Thoughtful Read: How Do You Create A Business Website?
3. When designing, navigation is the most crucial component.
The navigation of the website is its most crucial component since, without it, people are stranded on whatever page they happen to land on. After stating the obvious, we’ll discuss several crucial factors to take into account when creating a navigation plan. First and foremost, the navigation structure of a website needs to be given a lot of thought and planning.
Even though this is a simple sense, many online designs seem to take site navigation for granted. When designing the navigation, factors like placement, style, technology (will it use JavaScript or just CSS?), usability, and online accessibility are just a few to take into account. Due to text-based browsers, your navigation design should function without CSS.
Without the requirement for client-side technologies like JavaScript or Flash, which users could not have enabled or installed for a number of reasons like security or workplace policy, navigation should be accessible and usable.
You must have a reliable navigation system in place, and it must be situated in a prominent area. Without needing to browse down the page, a good navigation may be seen as soon as the website loads. Here, keeping things neat and straightforward is crucial because a convoluted or unorthodox design may leave users perplexed.
4. Make Clever and Methodical Use of Fonts
Despite the fact that there are thousands of fonts available, you can only actually use a few (at least until CSS3 is fully supported by major browsers). Be sure you only use web-safe fonts. Consider a progressively-enhanced web design that uses sIFR or Cufon if you dislike web-safe fonts.
Consistently use the same fonts. Make sure paragraph text and headings are visually distinct from one another. To make information enjoyable to read and easily scannable, add white space, and adjust the line height, font size, and letter spacing.
5. Understand Color Accessibility
We must discuss fonts first and then emphasize the significance of choosing the appropriate colors. For readability for users with low eyesight, you should take into account the color contrast between the background and foreground. For instance, orange writing on a red background will strain your eyes, while black text on a white backdrop has high contrast. Use colors that are accessible to people who have specific types of color blindness as well (check out a tool called Vischeck that will help you test for certain types of color-blindness). Some color combinations only appear appealing when the color is employed as the foreground rather than the backdrop.
6. You Must Know How to Write Your Own Code
The market is flooded with WYSIWYG editors, making website design as easy as 1-2-3. But the majority of these editors add pointless code bloat, which makes your HTML structure poorly structured, more difficult to maintain and update, and increases your file sizes. If you write the code yourself, it will be clear, concise, and easy to read and maintain. It will also be a code that you can be pleased to claim as your own.
7. Be sure to remember search engine optimization
When creating a website, a smart designer should always keep the fundamentals of SEO in mind. For instance, arranging web material so that headings use for significant text (i.e., page title and logo).
This is when knowing how to code correctly is useful. Knowing correct, semantic, and standards-based HTML/CSS will make it clear to you why divs are preferable to tables for web layouts, both for search engine optimization and accurate representation of site content. You will also see why replacing background text images with CSS is a good idea.
8. Be Aware of People’s Impatience
On average, people don’t take much time to decide whether they want to continue reading or move on to another website. Therefore, as a site designer, you must think of a technique to persuade consumers to select the first option within those limited seconds. If what they see at the top of the page does not pique their interest, be aware that few people will scroll down to see the whole contents of the page.
Do not overcrowd the top half of the page, as this can frighten users and discourage them from reading further down the page. Instead, keep your most critical items toward the top of the page, where they are easily visible.
9. Become familiar with (and mindful of) browser quirks
One of the things you need to be aware of as a web designer is that web browsers may be a tricky and unreliable environment in which to do your work. Your designs must function in as many different browsing scenarios as you are able to afford; it is not acceptable for them to only perform on a few different web browsers.
10. Create designs that are adaptable and upkeep-friendly
A competent web designer ensures that the website may be readily amend or upgrade in the future. A great web designer creates websites that are flexible and simple to update. Separate style from the structure in order to make your work as flexible as feasible.