Web Developers Guide To Choosing Elements of Web Design

You own a bakery where you make a special type of snack containing a mix of chocolate, fruits, and shredded coconut. While you are busy mixing and adding all ingredients together, you have several impatient customers standing at the counter waiting to be served. They don’t care about what quantity of flour, sugar, butter, fruits, and chocolate you have put together, all they want is their well packaged, freshly baked snack. That is the typical behavior of consumers; they don’t want to know how you get things done as long as it gives them the kind of results they want.

As a web developer, you need to serve your clients and their prospects a uniquely designed platform where every interaction with the interface will be memorable and second to none. Designing a website explores your creativity, it should be fun and dynamic as there’s no right or wrong way; however, whatever elements are put together must be carefully selected because they collectively have an impact on your ranking, SEO, client’s behavior and audience perception of your brand. A great web design includes elements that converts and make clients come back for more because they simply can’t get enough of you; it should also portray the brand’s USP and attributes which make it stand out among other brands in the industry.

Innovation is good but creating a design people find convenient to use and flowing with the latest trend in the industry cannot be overemphasized. Some years back, fascinating designs emerged and were regarded as incredible but you dare not try them in the 21^st century because they are outdated and old-fashioned. In all, the first impression can break or make a brand depending on some elements found on their websites like structure, colors, spacing, amount of text, fonts, and more. In this post, we would be looking at 4 major elements of web design, let’s walk through them a step at a time.

Color

When choosing colors for a brand’s website, these are a few questions that should be asked, ‘What is the brand’s color? What kind of business are they into? Who is their target audience and what color stereotypes do they attach to colors? Does the text color suit the background color? Will this color be appealing to the audience?

The use of contrast is recommended and endeavor to use enough white space; it helps the general looks of the site; I trust no one wants a funny looking website.

Font

Legibility is sacrosanct. While trying to achieve variation, do not be overzealous about it. Using a complementary font is ideal for headings or accents, but don’t go beyond three typefaces or unnecessary sizing adjustments so that your site will still look chic but professional. Google Fonts should be your go-to platform to explore trending and nice fonts. If readers find it stressful to read through your site then you need to check yourself. Tip: Use a light font on a dark background and the other way round.

Navigation

Your navigation buttons/menu should be recognizable and painlessly lead readers to where they can get the information they need to consume. The viewer should always know exactly where they are on the website and have easy access to where they would like to be. If you have a long page on your site ensure you have a navigation button that lets users go back to the top; the footer of your pages must also have a navigation tab to help people take certain actions or know what next to do after surveying your page. The Hamburger menu style should be used as it helps you keep things neat and organised; you could also put a site map in place so that people can know where they are coming from, where they are and where they are heading towards.

Content

Your content is key and should be well put together, in fact, it is what holds a user’s attention on your site. Well-written web content should answer your prospect’s questions before they even voice it; be proactive without neglecting the use of active words that can keep your reader emotionally attached rather than being repetitive or using redundant words and terms they can’t relate with. Furthermore, whatever design you come up with must in some way connect with the message the brand is trying to pass across.

While you try to build a sleek site, you must ensure balance, pick designs that are suitable for all kinds of devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile phones) and every web page should have its central theme or focus in order to reduce distractions, oddity and drive home your message. In conclusion, finding the right mix of all web design elements in their right proportion produces creative and visually appealing results; our experienced web designers here at Big Field Digital can come to your rescue if you let them.