Many people are very interested in learning the fundamentals of web design, but the prospect of doing so can be intimidating. If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed while trying to learn about web design, read on to learn some basics.
Your homepage and sub-pages should have a “site-searching” function of some kind. Site searching makes it easier for users to access information, and increases the overall usability of the site. You can include a search function easily, and it will greatly increase the utility of your site.
Tap into your creative side during your website design. By this, we mean that you should always be ready to let inspiration strike you. Take down notes on a new idea as soon as it comes to you. If you’re at a restaurant, use your napkin for notepaper. Or if you are not in a position to jot things down, give your cellphone a call and leave yourself a message so you can pick it up at a later time.
If you decide to use a logo, it should link to your homepage. It is common these days for sites to have a logo or image that visitors can click on to return to the home page. It’s frustrating to click on a logo and have nothing happen, and this saves you from adding a ‘home’ link. Logos that you can click on will make the site more navigable.
To begin, sketch out the overall design of your website; this can be rough, but should give you an idea of where to start. Ask friends and family for honest critiques of your drafts so that you get an idea on what direction to take.
Some hosting services offer a tool to build your own website. Use this tool to create a very basic layout but do most of the coding yourself. Your site should reflect you and your personality, so you want to make sure it’s not too generic.
Visitors often care more about your site’s content than the aesthetic quality of your design. Stay true to your original purpose and use imagery to help you achieve that; in other words, keep design simple and make sure it communicates your message. Keeping your page simple helps to speed up the time it takes to load.
Make sure someone is testing your website’s functionality as you go along. Whenever you include a new feature or make a change, give an impartial third party the chance to assess it. You might not think much of a video that loads slow, but another set of eyes can give a differing perspective. Make certain you are constant in your search for second opinions.
Remember, designing a website does not need to be expensive. For each tool that costs a great deal of money, there is a second tool that is beneficial and will not cost as much. For example, open source software can accomplish many of the same things you might use paid software for, and it is free. Utilizing open source software can help you save a significant amount of money.
Create and install a website icon on your page. Make you site recognizable in your customer’s favorites list with this small graphic. When they look through their bookmark list, a memorable favicon can stand out from the rest. When designing a favicon, ensure it’s consistent with the logo and theme of your site.
Don’t host business websites on free hosting services. You don’t want advertising to draw focus away from your own products or services. Use a paid service for your hosting instead.
Don’t utilize Flash players on your website. Flash can appear high-tech and look amazing, but for some people who have slower computers it will not show up well, and cause a lag. Don’t forget, some mobile phones and tablets don’t have Flash enabled, so they are going to be frustrated when they can’t view your site.
Adobe Photoshop is a valuable software program for any dedicated web designer. Programs like Photoshop are great for new web designers, because it allows them to quickly create professional websites. Building a site from scratch can be overwhelming for amateur designers, so take advantage of design tools and programs that can do some of the heavy lifting for you.
Hire a professional to do your website design, not a friend or family member. You can’t fire family, it’s a fact, so if they design something you don’t want you’ll end up disappointed or they’ll leave frustrated.
Allow users to cancel an action if they so choose. An action may refer to signing up for e-mail notifications, newsletter subscriptions or filling out web forms. If visitors cannot cancel an action they are not interested in, such as providing their contact information, they will feel they do not have a choice and won’t buy anything.
Try not to use JavaScript too much. Even if JavaScript opens up interesting possibilities for your designs, not all your visitors will be able to see your content properly. Each web browser displays content differently, and your visitors will be using many different versions of each software platform. Keep in mind that not every single person who visits your site has the most up to date browser version. You should also be aware that some of your users will have JavaScript disabled through their browser. Your website may not have any functionality to offer these types of users as a result.
Every web page you create should be validated. There a lot of WYSIWYG editors that will add meaningless code to your website design. If you use those programs, take an extra step to validate your code with a validation service. W3C provides a free service, which you can use to validate your webpages.
Now that you have a better idea of what it takes to get into web design, you should start to feel a bit more confident about getting into it. Keep learning about web design. There’s always new information to learn that can help you design your site more effectively. If you abide by what you have learned here, then there is no reason why you cannot succeed in designing a great website.
