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The notion of web design (or website design) can be formulated as “the external appearance of a site”. Before starting the development of website design, you should clarify three main points:
- color gamma of the site;
- arrangement of the main elements of website design (buttons, images, tables, text etc.)
- website usability (easiness to use).
Almost all webmasters and web designers can be divided into two groups. These groups have been arguing heatedly with one another for many years, trying to find the golden mean. The first group supports “beauty”; its representatives thinks, that it is unusual effects like flickering stars or girls, dancing in the mist, that are able to make your site really competitive and profitable.
The second group (with Jakob Nielsen at the head) claims that 90% of Internet users visit websites to find certain information; it means, that the ultimate aim of website design is not to prevent the visitor from finding and studying website content. The viewpoint of the representatives of the second group can be expressed by one sentence: “The coolest commercial website design is complete absence of web design”.
Perhaps, the truth is somewhere in between.
Let us try to analyze some aspects of development of website design and try to create a kind of an abstract model of a site that is nice-looking and at the same time convenient for the most inexperienced Internet users.
Color gamma of the site
How to choose the color gamma of the site properly? We can offer several methods, that have been tested in practice.
The first method to choose the colors for your site is to ask a professional artist, who knows about color combination, to choose the color gamma for you.
The second method is to read the articles about the peculiarities of psychological perception of certain colors. For instance, psychologists claim, that red color and derivative colors are the hardest for perception, therefore they evoke the feeling of aggression or anxiety. Red color is hardly appropriate for website design, unless it is a site devoted to corrida, revolution or any other bloody human disgrace.
On the contrary, green color and the whole green and olive-green gamma are the most comfortable for perception, therefore they evoke the feeling of calm, comfort, confidence. Even dollars are green, and wise men say that it is money that contains most vitamins...
Pay your attention: it is the olive-green gamma that is used for web design of a lot of business sites.
The third method of color selection, that is already outdated, is the colors of national flags. Websites that have such design are somewhat bright, but quite nice in general.
However, we are sure, that the most perspective approach to the choice of color gamma is creation of website design with the help of natural colors. To put it simply, you should take a photo of a natural landscape and select the colors for your site on its basis.
Speaking the color gamma of a site, we cannot but mention background and font color, as we make our site for visitors to read our unique content! Everything is quite simple in this case: since our childhood we are used to read black font on white background. And we assure you that all Internet users are also used to read black font on white background. Thus, you should not try to make your visitors change their reading habits by using lilac font on yellow background or white font on black background (one of Artemy Lebedev's favorite schticks).
People's eyes get tired because of such texts; site visitors get disappointed, irritated and finally leave this too bright site.
Please, do not forget, that the distance between you and your competitor on the Internet is one mouse click! And that your visitor (who is also your client) will leave your website for a less nice, but more simple and convenient one. He will not appreciate your color and other artistic extravagances. Arrangement of the main elements of website design (buttons, images, tables, text etc)
In this case everything is quite simple: convenience, simplicity and laconism. Ideally: the page strictly corresponds to the size of any display, even the most average one. Of course, it is hard to achieve the ideal variant. A vertical scroll bar is allowable yet, but a horizontal scroll bar is totally inadmissible. People leave such sites at once.
When you choose images for your web page, you should keep in mind two main points: the style and color of the image should conform to the color gamma of the whole site, and the image should not be too “heavy”.
A little statistics: is a site loads longer than ten seconds, 90% of visitors leave it.
Navigation links should be easy to discern even for the least experienced Internet users. Website usability
This topic requires a separate article though it is directly connected with web design. Let us recall the very beginning of our conversation: a perfect website design motivates the user to visit the site once again, read all its sections and gradually turn from a common visitor into a desired client who will buy your goods or order your services.
A small remark: do not be afraid to plan website design relying on your personal tastes and likings. “Birds of feather flock together” – perhaps, the visitors of your site will be somewhat like you, because they are interested in the topic your are interested in! It means, that they will probably like the things you like.
TAGS
web design,
website design,
usability,
jakob nielsen,
aim of design,
aspects of website creation,
commercial site,
color gamma,
elements of web design |
website design 
