The success or failure of a website is determined by its usability and functionality, not its visual design. User-centric design has become a common strategy for effective and profit-oriented web design since the visitor of the website is the only one who clicks the mouse and thus decides everything. After all, if a feature isn't usable, it may as well not exist.
Principles Of Good Website Design And Guidelines For Effective Web Design
To correctly apply the concepts, we must first comprehend how people engage with websites, how they think, and what the core patterns of their behaviour are.
What are the thoughts of users?
At general, users' online habits are similar to those of consumers in a business. Visitors take a quick look at each new page, skim through part of the content, and then click on the first link that piques their interest or seems roughly like what they're searching for. In fact, they don't even glance at a major portion of the website.
The majority of people look for anything intriguing (or useful) and clickable, and when they find some potential possibilities, they click. If the new page does not satisfy the users' expectations, the user clicks the Back button and the search continues.
Don't Force Users to Think
The online page should be obvious and self-explanatory, according to Krug's first law of usability. When you're building a website, your goal is to eliminate the question marks — the judgments that visitors must make actively, weighing pros and drawbacks.
The frequency of question marks rises as the navigation and site layout become less intuitive, making it more difficult for visitors to understand how the system works and how to go from point A to point B. Users may make their way to their goal with the aid of a clear structure, reasonable visual hints, and clearly identifiable connections.
Don't squander the patience of your users
When you're working on a project and you're going to provide your visitors a service or a tool, strive to make your user needs as low as possible. The less activity consumers must do in order to test a service, the more likely a random visitor will do so. First-time visitors prefer to experiment with the service rather than filling out lengthy web forms for an account they may never use again. Allow consumers to explore the site and learn about your offerings without being forced to share personal information. Forcing consumers to submit an email address in order to test a product is unreasonable.
Manage User Attention
Because websites contain both static and dynamic material, certain components of the user interface draw more attention than others. Obviously, visuals draw more attention than text, just as bolded phrases attract more attention than plain text.
Web users can rapidly perceive edges, patterns, and movements since the human eye is a highly non-linear instrument. This is why video-based adverts are highly unpleasant and intrusive, yet they perform an excellent job of attracting people' attention from a marketing standpoint.
Use Effective Writing
Because the Web differs from print, it's important to tailor the writing style to the tastes and browsing patterns of consumers. Promotional copy will not be read. Long blocks of text without graphics, as well as keywords in bold or italics, will be skipped. Excessive phrasing will be ignored.
Let's talk about business. Avoid names that are funny or creative, marketing-driven, company-specific, or technical names that are unknown. For example, if you're describing a service and want people to register an account, "sign up" is preferable than "start immediately!" and "explore our offerings."
Attempt Simplicity
The KIS concept (keep it simple) should be the primary objective of site design. Users seldom visit a site for the sake of the design; in fact, in most situations, they are seeking for information regardless of the design. Rather than attempting to be complex, strive towards simplicity.
From the visitors' perspective, the optimum site design is pure text, with no adverts or other content blocks that closely match the query or material they were looking for. One of the reasons why a user-friendly print version of web sites is critical for a positive user experience is because of this.
Do Not Be Afraid Of White Space
In fact, it's difficult to exaggerate the value of white space. It not only helps visitors lower their cognitive burden, but it also allows them to perceive the information displayed on the screen. When a new visitor arrives at a design layout, the first thing he or she does is scan the page and split the content area into easily consumable chunks.
Reading, scanning, analysing, and working with complex structures is more difficult. If you have the option of using a visible line or some whitespace to separate two design pieces, the whitespace approach is typically preferable. Complexity is reduced through hierarchical structures (Simo).
We hope you find this blog useful. Check out A2N Academy for top trending IT Courses.