Tag Archives: Website design

What Makes Good Design?

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Can anyone become a great designer with the right tools? Can good design be purchased from a box, downloaded in a software program, or installed from a template online?

As much as we would all like to believe that there is some magic pill or program out there that can take your message and turn it into a professional and effective design, it just isn’t so. First impressions matter and good design creates a message with an impact that is quick to understand and has a purpose. Good design is the craft of creating solutions for customers and clients faced with a communication challenge or a story that needs to be told. It’s the craft of balancing brand, business and the information hierarchy, and assembling them into an organized and effective message.

Good design is the making of a few hundred intricate choices that build on each other in the process. It starts with defining a goal, and determining what information and branding elements should be used to create a solution to that goal. It’s then determining where the challenges are, and how to turn those challenges into positive assets to create a message that inspires and leads to an action. Preferably a sale.

Great content, or copy, is a good place to start, but it takes training and experience to shape typography, color theory, white space, and an information hierarchy, to name a few, to create a sophisticated and successful solution. The goal should be to create a message that executes your desired purpose. Here’s a tip: look away, then look back at the piece again quickly. What is the first thing you see? Where does your eye go to immediately? A well-designed piece will not leave that aspect to chance. It is almost a science on how to direct the viewer’s attention around the page to send a very clear message. And that message should come across quickly, and cleverly too, if it is appropriate. Your eye should ultimately end up at a clear call to action. Invariably, this would include company name, and of course, contact information.

What mood or feeling is your piece trying to portray? Do the colors inspire, calm and relax, make you excited with anticipation, or portray stability and dependability? Colors can be subtle or bold. They are just as important as the copy, maybe more so, because of the emotional responses they create so instantaneously. Is there enough open space, also known as white space, to give the viewer’s eyes a rest, producing a sense of calmness and sophistication, if that is the desired effect. If you want to create a sense of endless adventure, maybe the approach should be an overwhelming amount of imagery, or a busy page. It’s all part of the responses and reactions you are trying to create.

Is there balance, for solidity and strength, or a deliberately weighted element to draw attention and create excitement? Is there a sense of movement? Good design can use shapes, balance and weight to anchor or complement, to create motion or movement, or to mystify and tease the viewing experience. Good design is the execution of skilled visual direction with a purpose.

And then there’s typography, or typefaces, and how to use them. It takes experience and time to get to know how each font has a quality, or character, of its own. Pun intended. Bold or soft, bright or calm, busy or clean, there are infinite combinations that can present a unique message with each design. With the experienced and craftful use of graphic elements, along with purposeful direction and precise execution, good design can be timeless.

Why should you care about Website usability?

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Website UsabilityBecause your potential customers may leave if you don’t.

A great Website starts with great content. However, even the best content may not attract or keep your customers’ interest if your Website lacks usability.

According to the W3C, the worldwide organization that writes Website standards, “usability is about designing products to be effective, efficient, and satisfying.”

For Websites, usability improves the user experience – making information easier to find and understand, resulting in more leads and / or sales.

Why should you care? In a nutshell, because people will leave your Website if is difficult to use. If it doesn’t answer their questions, they’ll leave. If your products are difficult to find, they won’t buy them. And, if your phone number is not prominent, they won’t call.

Regardless of whether you’re selling a product or a service, making your site usable is a key element in ensuring you have satisfied prospects and customers.

How can you make your Website more usable?

Design with consistency – A consistent header throughout your site, with prominent logo, company name, phone number, and contact link will make it easy for your prospective customers to understand who you are and how to contact you. In addition, a common main navigation, three clicks or less deep, will make all the pages of your site easy to find.

Be simple and skimmable – Web users skim pages when looking for information, products and services. Given that you have very few seconds to capture a user’s attention, it is essential that users are able to skim your pages for important information, and that the information is presented in simple and direct language. Keep industry jargon to a minimum and write in easy-to-understand sentences so that everyone, regardless of educational level, can understand your meaning. Break up long pages with headings and subheadings and pull out important information into easy-to-read bullet points.

Proofread for errors and meaning – A site riddled with misspelled words and grammatical errors is difficult to read and understand. Proofreading is an essential last step when writing. It gives you the opportunity to find not only your errors, but also to ensure that your text is conveying the meaning you have intended.

Put your important content first – Studies show that Web users view pages starting from the top left to top right, then the middle followed by the left side and finally the bottom. This may seem obvious to point out, but put your most important information in the most viewed areas of the page. That way, people who are skimming pages will see your most important information first, before possibly losing interest.

White space is a good thing – White space, or negative space, is the space between elements. Oftentimes people mistake white space as ‘empty,’ or space that needs to be filled up. However, white space fills a very important role – it allows the eye to distinguish between items and dramatically affects readability. It helps items stand out and separates them from other elements. Ultimately, white space can help improve readability while the lack of white space can destroy the readability of your Web page. If you have a lot of content, be sure to increase the amount of white space to make it easier to read.

Use proper HTML tags – The use of proper HTML tags, or semantic coding, is very important to usability for the visually impaired. Visually impaired people often rely on screen readers to read pages back to them. These types of programs cannot interpret pages well unless they are clearly explained in the HTML code.

Even if you do not know any HTML, it is possible to ensure that your Web pages are using the proper HTML tags. Modern content management systems will use the proper HTML tags if you make the right choices when designing your pages. Use the following as a guide:

  • The headline of your page should always be ‘heading 1’
  • Subheads should be ‘heading 2’ through ‘heading 6’ in order of importance
  • The bold button should be used to highlight important words within the body of your article (not article headings or subheads)
  • The italic button should be used for text that needs emphasis, like the names of publications
  • Use the blockquote button instead of multiple spaces to indent text
  • Use the enter key to begin a new paragraph and shift-enter to add a soft return, or line break
  • Only use underlines to denote hyperlinks – most content management systems will do this for you automatically

Test your pages – Always, always test your pages in multiple browsers to ensure your page layouts look as intended. Each browser has its own unique quirks and what looks good in one may look completely unreadable in another. We recommend testing in Internet Explorer 7, 8, and 9, FireFox, Chrome, and Safari.

Likeability – All things being equal, users will follow up with, and purchase from, the site they ‘like’ the best. This is where the importance of branding comes into play… but, that is another article. ;-)

When To Do a Photoshoot

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PhotoshootIn today’s market, the driving force always starts with budget, budget, budget. And as far as budgets are concerned, photos traditionally fall into three categories; the most expensive being custom professional photography, the next being rights reserved or stock photography, and the least expensive being the DIY (do-it-yourself) category. So it seems only logical that if you have a very tight budget to naturally only consider the stock photography or DIY categories because they are less expensive. But are they always? Let’s take a look.

What to consider when choosing your photography:

  1. Start with your long-term goals. You will save money if you think ahead. Is your photo going to be used in print where a high-resolution image will be necessary? Or will it be used only on the Web? The larger the image requirements are, the more difficult to shoot and the more expensive it can be in the DIY and stock categories respectively. An image purchased FOR the Web may look great ON your Website, but most likely, will not be able to get any larger than a couple of inches wide without losing significant quality and detail. If you are going to purchase stock photography, make sure to purchase the largest size available for not only your immediate purpose, but for future uses as well.
  2. Consider your company image or brand. Is your market highly competitive? Do you really want to see your image randomly showing up anywhere? With professional photography, you own the rights to your photos and have exclusivity to your own branded look. When you purchase stock photography, you also purchase the rights to use that image, and if you’re alright with the occasional clone popping up, stock photography can be very effective and cost-efficient. However, when it comes to providing a professional quality image to portray your company, most of the dangers lie in the DIY category. It’s not as easy as it looks getting the lighting just right to avoid unwanted reflections, glare and the all too commonly overlooked background disasters. And need I mention being in focus is always a plus?
  3. Photo manipulation. Everyone by now has heard of Photoshop® and what it can do. Yes, Photoshop IS a very powerful tool. You can modify, alter or recreate almost anything into something almost unrecognizable from where you started. This is true. As an example, I once created an image of a building in Photoshop that did not even exist yet. I had an architectural drawing and some photos with pieces of other buildings, backgrounds, skies, fire escapes, etc. available to me at the time. With a bit of perspective distortion and cloning, the end result did the job of representing a building available for construction. Was it as good as having a professional photographer shoot on location? Absolutely not. But, in that particular case, it was definitely cheaper than to actually build the structure and shoot it. On the flip side, I have also spent hours and hours on DIY images, trying to improve the quality, color, alter the shape or details of images with the end result of something that could have easily been shot professionally, and in focus, with the same cost and time in the end. Was it worth it? Probably not. To make your best decision, you will need to consider all of these issues before you proceed.
  4. Lastly, consider time. Sure enough, stock photos and DIY are pretty much indeed instant gratification. You see it, you buy it – it’s yours to use. That alone can save you time and money. But if you think you will need some serious manipulation should you go with the stock or DIY route, or – if you just can’t seem to find or shoot that perfect image yourself, then a studio or on-location photo shoot may actually be quicker and more cost-effective than manipulating a photo. Not to mention, you will have the professional end results you are looking for.

Granted, stock photography is here to stay. And with so many stock photography choices out there, stock photos and the DIY routes are viable options and indeed have their place in fulfilling the needs of many. But there is still no replacement for good professional photography with all its creative resources that are available. So whichever route you choose, just make sure you think through carefully all your options to make the correct decision for your project. Thanks for listening.