What constitutes a good website design? Does it showcase your design prowess? Does it prove what a brilliant graphic designer you are? Does your web design fetch you designing awards? Or does your website design exist to establish a platform for you and your visitors to interact with each other unhindered by usability glitches? I think the last point is the most important factor that establishes the basic difference between a successful and an unsuccessful website.
Although the perception of good website design changes from person to person, there are some established conventions you can follow to make sure your website reaches as many people as possible. When you design your website, you have to be constantly aware that people use many different browsers and devices to visit it. Today more people browse the web on their phones than on computers, so your design has to work well on screens of every size.
Your website design also depends on what you plan to showcase: will you include videos, images, just text, or a mixture of all three? You have to design your website accordingly. If it is mainly text that you plan to publish, keep the design simple, as people will come to your website for your text and not your images and videos. Similarly, a portfolio site for a video or animation studio will be expected to be rich in media, so it can lean more heavily on visuals.
So when you are designing your website you have to take all these parameters into consideration. But does it mean that you’re always accommodating browsers and devises and do not focus on your own business, whatever that is? No, I’m not suggesting that. Just take care of the following website design guidelines and you will make sure that 95% people (well, there will always be those odd 5% who can never browse the web easily no matter what they try) surfing the Internet can access your website:
1) Create a lighter design. Don’t let heavy JavaScript or large animations get in the way of your site’s main features, including menus. For instance, if there is crucial information people need before doing business with you, don’t hide it inside an image or an animation. Important text should always be real text, not part of an image.
2) Don’t use colors that cause strain to the eyes. If you want people to come to your website again and again and consume your content or do business with you then you must make their stay over your website as pleasant as possible. No matter how awesome your design looks if the color combinations are strain-full, after a while they will tire of your website and stop coming. Always take care that your background behind the text is far lighter than the text, and vice versa.
3) Plan a carefully considered navigation system, from the user’s point of view. If your website has multiple pages, it should have a clear navigation menu that is easy for everybody to use, on phones as well as computers. As mentioned above, don’t let your navigation depend on images or heavy scripts. A simple text-based menu, styled with CSS, can look great.
4) Design your website with CSS, which keeps your content separate from its layout. With modern CSS, your pages can rearrange themselves to fit any screen size (known as responsive design), and your main content can come first in the code even when it appears beside or below the navigation.
Follow these basic web design principles and you will have a good website design to boast of. Never forget that the main purpose of your site design should be to create a good user experience for your visitors, the design is not there to indulge your design whims.