Before a website is designed, clients expect the design team to choose the best idea to represent the brand identity and style. They expect the idea to be designed based on existing needs and interests. Regardless of which idea the design team and client choose, there are constant principles along the way that work together to achieve the main goal of creating a good user experience.
1) Color Evokes Emotions
Every color has a certain meaning, conveys a certain concept, and conveys emotions such as happiness, peace, sadness, and jealousy. Color concepts are different in every part of the world.
Color must represent the culture of the company to the users in a way that creates the right feeling in the target community. Wherever the user sees the same color as your brand, they should remember your brand identity.
If you use Spotify, black and green colors together may remind you of Spotify, or orange may remind you of Soundcloud, the same goes for many other brands.
If you know what to use, then it is better to use the Color Wheel to show other colors that match it or use Material Design Palette, these make everything very easy and allow designers to focus on other issues.
2) Navigation, No One Likes To Be Confused
If it is difficult to navigate on the website, customers may leave and never return.
Users must never wonder that Where is the site navigation?
Imagine new users visit the site, will they be confused? The answer to this question can solve many problems and may even cause this part to be redesigned, but it will increase the efficiency and attractiveness of your website navigation.
It’s important to focus on all the parts that navigate the user from one page to another, such as navigation in the header or footer, so they all need to be reviewed to create a great experience.
The main goal of navigation is to allow users to get to their desired content with a few actions and with as little effort on their behalf as possible.
One way to improve a user’s ability to navigate your site is to add a site map. Another option is to simplify navigation by removing unnecessary or underperforming pages.
Many awesome navigations currently work with JavaScript enabled. It would be great if navigations worked without JavaScript.
Very attractive navigations need JavaScript to work, but a simple stylish navigation bar can be enabled with CSS, which is what we all want. (Works even when JavaScript is disabled).
It’s up to the client and the design team what type of navigation they choose.
3) Social Media, Users & Competition.
Users currently spend a lot of time on social media. so, integrating with social media and choosing the best interaction type has a huge impact on making brands standing out.
Social media provides a place where customers can promote brands, leave reviews and keep up to date with a company’s latest news.
It should be checked which social media are able to generate more interaction with each page of the website, it will help you to choose the best social media to generate more engagement.
Let’s look at an example, on a product page, which social media or messenger is worthy for this page?
- Twitter, allows the user to share this product and leave their reviews publicly.
- WhatsApp, allows the user to share this product privately and easily with anyone who wants to discuss it.
- Telegram, this messenger is becoming more and more popular all over the world, so many users are using this software instead of WhatsApp, it would be great if you support it too.
Social media interaction is not a novelty anymore — it is a requirement. Provide buttons on web pages to interact with different social media(See other interesting social media design ideas). Also, consider other interactions like “Like” and “Follow” can help you a lot.
Ignoring these markets can cause brands to fail against their competitors who have invested in them.
4) Usability, Don’t Make Users Think
According to Krug’s first law of usability, the website should be obvious and self-explanatory. When you create a website, it’s the designer’s job to eliminate the question marks, they should make sure the number of question marks is close to 0.
Usability can be enhanced by clearly presenting product and service information. Websites that are easy to use are more likely to evoke customer interest and promote business. People won’t use websites if they can’t find their way around.
Steve Krug suggests :
“It is better to innovate only when you know you really have a better idea, but take advantage of conventions when you don’t have a better idea.”
In other words: If the design is truly unique, make sure it’s not too vague and confusing. Be creative, but keep it simple.
New ideas for design become easier and clearer with answering a few questions:
- Is this necessary for my design?
- How does this help the user?
- How does this take the user to the next level?
- If I suddenly remove this element, will most people want it back?
Answering these questions about ideas for adding or removing elements gives designers a more complete understanding of what they want to do.
Keeping everything simple, concise, and clear makes it easy for users to use the website. This is what attracts attention and makes a difference.
5) CTA, Ask Users To Do Something
It’s a statement or question that motivates users to do something. A friendly call-to-action (CTA) shows that a business wants to build a relationship with its customers(see 40 examples).
Regardless of what websites are asking users to do, from buying to sign up, as a rule of thumb, every page on the website should have at least one CTA. Placing a CTA encourages users to take the action they intend.
Below we will look at 3 CTA use cases on websites:
- “Follow us on Twitter for more marketing tips!” — at the end of a blog post encourages users to take an action by following your business account on Twitter.
- “Your email is all we need to join our free web design course.” — In a blog post about the course, entering the email and clicking the “Join the Course” button in the blog post takes users to the course page.
- “Please enter your mobile number to Watch the preview of the course.”- Users get an overview of the course after seeing the preview, and the sales team can convert a larger percentage of visitors into buyers by calling them.
Users should get something valuable after doing a CTA because what they’re doing is so valuable, so what better way than to make it up to them with something valuable?
Make sure users always get what they want directly after the CTA, don’t confuse them. This will ruin the intimate relationship you have with them.
6) Visualization, A Way To Better Understanding
Visual elements such as (photos, videos, diagrams, maps) facilitate the user’s understanding of the content.
These elements bring beauty into the content, and since humans instinctively love beauty, this will have a direct effect on better understanding.
Visual elements are required on every page of the website, from the homepage to the purchase page, from the contact-us page to the blog post. these visual elements make the content attractive and present the target as best as possible.
Excessive use of them will be a very disgusting act for the users, avoid this mistake in all designs.
The following are examples of the use of visual elements to help the user understand the main purpose:
- Photos: Using related photos in the blog post makes the topic more understandable to the user.
- Videos: Imagine you are signing up for a course. Placing a part of that course as a video on the course enrollment page makes it easy for users to get familiar with the course and will clarify how it is gonna be.
- Diagrams: The information given to the user in the form of textual content may confuse the user, so it is better to show it to the user visually in addition to the textual content.
- Map: The office address can be found on the Contact-us page and the course location address can be found on the Course Registration page. Providing a map on the website using mapping services such as Google Map gives the user a sense of value. It may be simple, but the decision sets the company apart from other competitors in the minds of users.
If the client has the financial and technical ability to design and present the elements according to the brand identity and style, it can be great. It causes valuable content to be produced exactly according to the essence of the brand, and the user feels closer to the brand and remembers the brand by seeing similar elements.
If this is not possible, care should be taken not to infringe copyrights, also don’t use photos and videos available on various websites. There are websites that provide high-quality photos and videos, it is enough to comply with the conditions for their use.
Below is a list of websites for photos and videos:
Before using these websites, you should be aware of the terms and conditions of use of that website. To find more items, you can search Google for “Stock Photos Resources” or “Stock Videos Resources”.
7) Fonts & Texts, Effective Writing
There are thousands of fonts, Define one or two fonts for the website and use only those, too many fonts can cause you problems.
many people have no trouble reading small text sizes, think about older users and people with low vision and other types of visual impairments.
An optimal solution for effective writing is to :
- use short and concise phrases.
- use simple and factual language.
- use a scannable layout — multiple heading levels, visual elements, bulleted lists, and tables. Make sure headings are visually distinct from paragraph text. Use white space, line height, font size, and letter spacing to make the content comfortable to read and effortless to scan.
8) Responsive Design, Small Screens Have Priority
According to a report by Statista, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 54.8% of global website traffic in the first quarter of 2021. To reach this growing number of mobile users, businesses need to ensure their websites are accessible from any device.
The Mobile version should be cleaner than the Desktop version. The web design should be optimized for these devices. How images, text, logos, and other elements display on smaller screens is important.
Go over the website’s mobile version while putting yourself in the user’s position and test out every page, user action, and button. There are also unique mobile features that can be used to enhance the mobile design.
One of the most important principles of Responsive Design is that mobile should come first.
A great definition of “Mobile First” from Vincent Xia on Medium Story:
“Mobile first”, as the name suggests, means that we start the product design from the mobile end which has more restrictions, then expand its features to create a tablet or desktop version.
To learn more about “Mobile First.” I recommend this article from Vincent Xia on Medium, it will be very helpful.
9) Accessibility, Users Should Use Website Easily
Users should be able to easily access the website and use its features. After supporting users on different devices (from small to large screens), users with special physical disabilities need to be fully supported. They can bring huge traffic to the website.
Accessibility takes place at all stages, from design to development and content management. Below are some examples of accessibility in design:
- Font Size: In section number 7 we discussed font size on different screens, your font size must vary from heading level to paragraph. The font size should be neither too small nor too large to avoid causing problems for users.
- On focus: many users, even people who don’t have a physical disability, use the Tab key to move between elements. This is quite common. To make it easier for this user group, it would be better if something happens after focusing on an element, like showing a border or changing the background color. after that, the users can easily figure out where they are.
- Color combination: check the color contrast of background and foreground colors for readability and for users with low vision. For example, black text on a white background has high contrast. So this is good for users with vision problems.
Also, before using colors, they should be checked, they are accessible to users with particular forms of color-blindness or not?
Conclusion
There are many principles to consider when creating a branded website. But with these 9 principles, business owners stand a good chance of making their brand stand out in the industry.
