10 Key Elements of Professional Web Design
Website designing may seem like a daunting and tedious task but it isn’t. As long as you understand what users and visitors want, you can easily create and design a visually stunning and user-friendly website.
Today we will give you some tips and discuss the key elements of professional web design. Those will help you to create visually stunning and user-friendly websites and stand out from the crowd!
Top 10 Elements to Create Visually stunning and User-friendly Websites
Maintain Balance
By maintaining balance, we mean to strike a balance between symmetry and asymmetry. In order to do that, you should have a clear idea of what the end website is going to look like while you are still in the website design planning phase.
Once you have that picture in mind, you need to go through trial and error and strike that balance. You can either aim for a symmetrical balance or an asymmetrical balance, the choice is yours.
Less Is More
Most of us are familiar with this statement, and this is something designers should follow religiously. Simplicity is always the best option. Instead of bombarding your website with unnecessary elements, you should focus on keeping things simple, neat, and clean.
A common mistake amateur designers make is they go crazy with colors. Ideally, you should try to aim for 2-3 base colors max. A good rule of thumb is to choose the colors of the Brand or Brand logo or colors that complement it.
Another thing you can do is use somewhat muted colors instead of vibrant “in your face” kind of colors. Because simple, muted colors give any website a professional and modern appearance and also make the website less intrusive.
Focus On Consistent Typography
What is Typography? Well, typography is the art of presenting text in a visually stunning and user-friendly manner. It is often the difference between a user-friendly website and an overly complicated website.
Here are the elements of typography you should be careful of:
- Your choice of fonts
- The size and length of the fonts
- Spacing
- Using a limited number of fonts
- Readability of the text
- Hierarchy of the fonts, H1, H2, Normal Text, etc.
- Scaling across multiple platforms
What often separates pros from amateurs is that pros pay attention to the length and height of lines of texts. Texts should always have that balance between too lengthy and too short. Because it directly affects user readability and experience.
Connect All Elements
This may sound ambiguous, but it means ensuring the webpage is cohesive and consistent.
A webpage has many different portions and segments. Each of these portions and segments may be of totally different things, but each of these portions and segments should feel “connected.” No element or segment should seem like it’s out of place.
There should be unity between all the web pages. Unity is all about how different elements and segments fit together. If your webpage lacks unity and if the elements feel “disconnected,” it makes the entire webpage look sloppy and poorly designed.
Make Use of White Space
What is white space? Well, it is exactly what it sounds like. White space is literally the empty white spaces you see on web pages.
Many amateur web designers make the mistake of adding unnecessary bits and filling out white spaces. This not only makes the web page cluttered but greatly compromises readability and user experience.
Having white space is perfectly fine. Often you can take advantage of the white spaces. Professional web page designers strategically use white spaces to make elements stand out. Yes, white spaces can be used to highlight things and make certain bits stand out more than others.
This can be an excellent way to draw the attention of the readers to something you want them to focus on. So you should start utilizing white space to your advantage from now on!
Use High-Quality Media
This should be self-explanatory as you should always use the best and highest quality of media and graphic elements on your website. That being said, you should also focus on loading times and cross-platform compatibility.
Make Navigation Easy
Navigation is something we often overlook. This is often the difference between a user-friendly website and a not-so-user-friendly website. Regardless of how aesthetically pleasing or visually stunning your website is. If it is difficult to navigate, then all that designing goes down the drain.
Here are a few things you should ensure to make navigation easy:
- Make the menu accessible from every page
- Use descriptive URLs
- Have a site map
- The web page should have a search option
- Place key information in plain sight
- Keep menus minimum
Add Interactive Elements And Animations
Interactive elements and animations are an excellent way to enhance user experience. Adding bits and pieces of animation strategically and conveniently can make an otherwise boring and simple web page into one that is fun and intuitive.
Here are a few examples of strategic animation placement:
- Scroll based animations
- Cursor hover over effects
- Clickable interactions
- Transitions
Again do not overdo it. Constraint is key here. Because adding too many animations may be a sign of immaturity and make the experience overwhelming.
Effective placement of animated elements and interactive elements greatly enhances user retention and user overall experience.
Don’t Forget CTAs And Copywriting
CTA stands for Call To Action. CTAs are great for increasing user engagement and interaction. CTAs are an excellent way to improve user experiences and makes your web page more engaging.
CTAs also prompt visitors to interact. It could be as simple as clicking to view more info on something or download something. Remember CTAs act as less intrusive and less distracting than most ads and prompts. So this directly translates to more user retention and engagement.
Test, Test, Test!
The last but most important step is testing. We cannot stress this enough! Once your web page is done and complete, test it. Get people to test it for you. Hear their feedback and implement their suggestions.
Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about the users and visitors. While you, as a designer, may not like or want something on your web page, a viewer or user might. So prioritize their needs and demands first.
Conclusion
The key takeaways should be the 3c’s: Consistency, Constraint, and Cohesiveness. As long as you have these 3c’s in your mind when designing your website, we are sure you will be able to come up with a website that’s not only visually stunning but also user-friendly!
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