Are you looking to gain skills and experience in web design or mobile apps as a potential career builder? If you do, then you need to learn what you can about web design, and this information can help you.
Don't have an abundance of graphic design on your site. Although graphics are necessary make your site project a professional, well-designed and cohesive look, having too many can make it look cluttered. Don't use graphics just to decorate; use them to improve the site. Having the right amount of graphics will improve your site's usability and reduce the clutter.
A good website will never require that a visitor provide the same information more than once. Ensure that personal data for each of your website's visitors is preserved. Make it easy on your visitors by keeping information that they may need for other forms or orders. It's annoying for visitors to have to re-register for different site functions, so work to make the site experience positive for your users.
Have a site map. These are useful to your clients and the search engines, as they give a detailed overview of your entire website. It can be a guide for viewers searching for a certain part of your site, and also allow you to keep track of its structure and layout.
Wherever your logo appears on your site, you should accompany it with a complementary slogan or tagline. Ideally, this tagline should be catchy and informative, and should offer some basic summary of the purpose of your site or product offering. The combination of your logo and tagline should appear on every page to create a sense of cohesion.
Do not allow pop-up windows on your site. Though there are some uses for pop-ups, they are often considered an annoyance. If customers see these popups and get frustrated, they may not come back to your site.
Do not use images for your background. When you think about some of the biggest websites on the Internet, they do not have images as backgrounds. When you use image backgrounds, you represent yourself as someone who is not well-versed in web designing. Images as backgrounds also cause your site to load slower, which can lead to user frustration.
If you want your site to reach search engines, ditch frames. Although some users like frames, information inside the frame will not show up when searched. Your rating will not be very high if search engines can't see some of your important info. When that happens, not many people will see your site.
Use breadcrumbs and make it so that clicking on the site logo returns you to the homepage. Breadcrumbs are markers that show where the visitor is in the site structure. For instance, the breadcrumbs might read "home > furniture > beds." When the user clicks a link in the breadcrumbs, he can return to a page further up in the site hierarchy. Clicking on a business logo should generally take the visitor back to the homepage as well.
Photoshop is a very effective and helpful tool when it comes to web design. Dreamweaver is less well known, but is another program you should look into.
When thinking over your website design, it is a good idea not to stray too far from popular conventions. For example, most users expect that when they click on the website logo at the top of a webpage, they will be taken to the home page of the website. If your website behaves differently, it can confuse the user. In many cases, straying from such conventions can lead to a poor overall user experience.
Understand how your webpage will be read at a glance, rather than word for word. Most viewers won't spend their time gathering every piece of written content on a page; at least not until after they've scanned it. Words that are larger, bold, or emphasized should be the most important and placed sparingly to get your ideas across.
Write content based on the literacy level of your readers. Using technical lingo may alienate some visitors. If you want to appeal to everyone, write so that everyone can understand you.
Ensure that your site's search box is close to the top of your webpage and that it contains a minimum of 27 characters. Be sure that the search button is labeled "search", rather than "go or "submit." By doing this, you will make the search box easier to see and use. This is important to your visitors.
Check out other pages to get some inspiration. Let creative sites influence how you design your own and make it a masterpiece. Learn from them and avoid making their mistakes so you look better than your competition.
As you design your site, make use of contrasting colors and focus on simplicity. A dark background with dark text is a mistake. It becomes much harder for the eyes to focus and read these types of webpages or mobile apps. Do not use complex patterns as a background, either. The problem here is that the text may get lost in the background, leaving the visitor running from your site. Stick to black text with a white background instead.
If your website requires a professional feel, you should utilize standard fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman. While fancier fonts may look appealing to you at first glance, more often than not, they will make your visitors feel that your website is less than professional. This is true for font colors as well. Stick to black text as much as possible. Do not color the text in random colors such as green or orange.
The number one tip for web designers is that you must keep the pages simple enough to load quickly. They make look nice when you add a bunch of extra scripting and graphic design to them, but if they take too long to load, your visitors are going to get tired of waiting and leave.
You should now have a great start on the basics of website design and feel a little less confused by it. Now that it makes more sense to you, use this information to your advantage and set up a great site.
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