There are two components to website design; User-Experience and User-Interface. When both are done right, it could mean more conversions of visitors into your customers or subscribers. The basic elements of good website design are important to know in order to increase conversions.
The end goal of the perfect website design is that it should be comfortable to use, it should reflect the nature of your business, and most importantly, it should make a positive impression on first-time visitors. So what are the basic elements of a good website design?
Today, it’s not just about the site being visually appealing. Though that’s important, it should also be rich with functionality, interactive, optimised for mobile devices and should be SEO friendly.
Keeping all that in mind, you still have to make sure that the aesthetics are not missed and the landing page does a good job of displaying clear, concise information, which is easily accessible by your visitors. Is there a basic approach that all website designers use to get the best results? Keep reading to learn more.
8 Basic Elements of Good Website Design
Overall layout
This is the first decision that website designers in the UK make when planning a website. To make a good first impression, you want your website to load fast and not be cramped with content. A site tends to look confusing when there is loads of content scattered unsystematically.
Use enough whitespace (margins and padding) so the elements have room to breathe. A grid-based design keeps items organised and orderly, which also makes information easy to access. A clean design always feels comfortable to navigate for a user.
Also, sticking to a familiar and intuitive layout is usually a good idea. Visitors are looking for specific information when they visit your website. They don’t want to go through everything on the website and want to access only what they need. Visitors like the site when it saves them the time to look up something.
A website without fantastic navigation is a disaster. The role of navigation on a website is to tell viewers where they are currently on the site and how to easily reach another part of the website. Without a navigation panel with menu items, the user would feel lost on the website.
Most designers do know this, but just having the navigation isn’t enough. The best practices ensure that it is easily accessible from all pages and is interactive but not annoying. The positioning and type of navigation should be based on functionality. But it should not be too hard to find or use.
A sticky or fixed navigation bar is a good idea when the website requires the users to scroll down the page to a great length. You don’t want them to scroll all the way back to access the menu items. So a fixed navigation could be useful.
Colour Scheme
This is the part where a professional web designer will put a lot of different factors into focus. The brand, the type of content, the target audience, and the nature of the business. All these matter when the designer chooses a colour palette.
Paying attention to the industry perspectives is crucial to picking the colour scheme. Also, the colours should support the actual content on the website and not be too overwhelming that it distracts the viewers from the main content.
The age group and gender of the target audience, no doubt, should be a consideration. Here are some common types of colour schemes to choose from are;
- Monochromatic
This is when the designer uses different shades of one colour. He may choose one basic colour and then add white or black to get lighter or darker shades of that colour. This is often used for a minimalistic design in order to emphasise more important elements easily. The website with this scheme is also easy to remember.
- Triad
You pick three colours evenly spaced in a colour wheel. These schemes tend to be quite vibrant. There is one colour that is quite dominant and the other two are used for highlight. Some commonly used combinations in a Triad are; violet-orange-green, red-yellow-blue, and violet-orange-green.
- Complementary
This scheme only has two colours picked by selecting opposite colours on the colour wheel. This type of colour scheme can be tricky to use but looks really good in certain cases. The high contrast creates a vibrant look.
- Analogous
When three colours next to each other in a colour wheel are used, this is labelled as an Analogous colour scheme. These types of colour harmonies are often found in nature and appear pleasing to the eye. You must make sure that you get enough contrast when picking up the colours in an Analogous schema.
Typography
You want the site visitors to actually read the text content on the pages without hurting their eyes. So the size, colour, and style of your font should be given a lot of attention. It should be easily readable and must also support the overall feel of the website.
The contrast between the font colour and its background would make it easy on the eyes. Always avoid a piercing colour like red on a green background. That kind of colour combination is really unpleasant to look at.
Most designers go with a font size greater than 14 px. Some of the most popular fonts used on websites are Roboto, Lato, Oswald, Montserrat, Raleway, Open Sans, and Source Sans Pro. Fonts could be of two types; for example, serif and sans-serif.
A serif makes a letter more distinctive by adding a decorative stroke at the end of a letter’s feet. It totally depends on the use case that what would look the best and increase the readability of the text. This is one of the most basic elements of good website design.
Content
Most site visitors have a short attention span. This means that you should clearly communicate your message. The information on the site should be easy to read and understand. Your viewers are also quick to form impressions. The essential info, especially the one meant to wow them should instantly catch their attention.
Content is, in fact, the backbone of your website. This is what your readers come for. You must deliver clear and precise information and the long, rambling sentences should not get in the way of your brand’s primary selling points. Make sure that you define every section with headings and also subheadings when necessary.
Mobile friendly and browser compatibility
Today, almost all designers are emphasising that the website should be mobile-responsive. Who doesn’t have a smartphone today? It is common for people to check the site on their mobile-first. If they like what they see, they would then turn on their laptops or desktops to check the details.
The website design should be coded in a way that every element is optimised for mobile screens. Also, all the functionalities on the site should be supported on all the major browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc. If not coded properly, you might see glitches when the site opens on a different browser or device.
SEO optimised
There is fierce competition to rank your website above that of your rival’s on the Google search engine. From keyword placement, fast loading, and meta tags to schema markup, there are dozens of things that a designer must focus on so that the website will easily come up on Google searches.
A designer should be aware of all the tips and tricks that would place the site higher on the Google search ranking. The quality of the content and efficiency of the functionality would all contribute to the SEO of a website. Title tags, alt attributes, and meta descriptions should not be missing in a good website design. This is also one of the basic elements of good website design.
Interaction
The website should talk to your audience. It should compel or direct them towards accessing more detailed information about your product, service, or subscription plan. It should be interactive enough to engage with the viewers but if you overdo this, it might become irritating.
Sometimes the users want to navigate through the site at their own pace. They don’t want features that are distracting and are forcing them to click on something. That is why it’s a blend of quality content and interactive elements on the website that help with the conversion of visitors into customers.
Conclusion
Web designing might look complicated and mysterious, but professional designers master this trade over time and are aware of all the basic elements of good website design that would make more visitors re-visit your website and convert to customers or readers. It’s not just the efforts but also their knowledge that makes a website stand out.
A good website shouldn’t look generic. It should reflect the nature of one’s business and deliver the right message. It should compel the visitor to stay a little longer and have the desired impact on the viewer. This is why a designer must follow all the best practices to make a website good on all fronts.
A great website design is a necessity in such a competitive environment. You must do everything right with your website design to get more organic traffic and for visitors to keep coming back to your website.
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