Top 5 Web Design and Usability Tips
Web design is paramount, as it communicates your brand, company ideals and reputation all at once. More importantly, it serves as a window through which your audience sees and perceives you. Therefore, less-than-perfect web design can mean the difference between your audience choosing you or your competitor when making purchasing decisions.
The challenge for web designers is to balance eye-catching design with properly functioning interfaces and applications to meet specific user needs and goals. Here are our top five tips for creating more usable (and beautiful) web pages that meet the needs of the intended end user.
1. FUNCTION BEFORE FORM
It's not just about beauty, it's about function. Before you begin designing, it's essential to think about what each page will offer, as a web page exists to provide something that's useful or interesting to visitors.
Think - what are you offering your visitors? Why should they take time to peruse your site? Separate topics into defined sections, and keep text direct and to the point to make it easy for your visitors to find and absorb the information they need.
2. FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT
When a visitor arrives on your site, you have roughly eight seconds to convince them to stay. Centre your company tagline or brand motto on the site so it's the most obvious element to clearly describe what the website can offer.
3. LIMIT YOUR PALETTE
Never underestimate the power of simplicity. Limit your palette to two or three harmonious colours, and work within the shades of each colour for variety. This will create contrast in your design, and help guide the eye to key areas.
When using visuals and graphics, ask if they improve the web design, not just decorate it. If you use to many graphics, they will compromise the speed at which the pages are loaded.
4. MAKE IT MOBILE
Capture the growing mobile market by conforming your website to the mobile viewing medium. Designing for the mobile doesn't mean removing the bells and whistles, it means optimising content and navigation displays for devices to ensure functionality and usability.
The most important content should be at the top of the site, as it can be tedious to navigate mobile websites. And don't forget to add back buttons and links; many phones are not equipped with them.
5. TACTILE TECHNOLOGY
With the growth of touchscreen-enabled technology, it's more important than ever to accommodate fingertip navigation in web design. It's also necessary to take a step back and think about the implications for web design. How will user peruse your site, click links and zoom in on pictures?
A finger is less accurate than a mouse point, so embrace white space and ensure buttons, links and other interactive elements are large enough to be pressed on the first try.
Design for portrait and landscape orientation, and shift sidebar placement from the left to the right as most users are right-handed.
We do design
At Vivo Group, we're committed to pushing the creative boundaries and designing websites at the forefront of innovative design. You won't find any templates here; each project is custom-made from scratch and tailored to the client's brands values, audience and business objectives.
Contact us for more information about how we can help you to design the perfect website.
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