Question

Provide examples of best practice and poor practice from your own experience of website design and justify your thinking with evidence.

Answer 1

The list of good and poor website design principles which will make your website aesthetic, user-friendly, effective, and engaging amoung users:

1. Manage To Focus Users’ Attention

As web-sites provide both static and dynamic content, some aspects of the user interface attract attention more than others do. Example: images are more eye-catching than the text , just as the sentences marked as bold are more attractive than plain text.

2. Don’t Make Users Think

The web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory.

3. Include social share and follow buttons

It helps user to reach you out easily.

4.  Use the right images

Not every image is going to fit with the type of message you're trying to show your audience. Select proper image which can convey message.

5. Navigation

When designing your website, navigation is key, it's essentially the map that displays the core places users can visit.

6. Don't be afraid of white space

Whitespace is an essential design element that helps you break up the page and increase readability. Also called ‘negative space’, white space refers to the areas around elements on a page that are empty and lacking content or visual items.

7. Minimize text

Dont show lot of text, instead use images to represent.

8. Consistency

Consistency in website design matter a lot. Give your attention to match design elements throughout each of the pages. It can be understood that your fonts, sizes, headings, sub-headings, and button styles must be the same throughout the website. Plan everything in advance. Finalize the fonts and the right colors for your texts, buttons, etc, and stick to them throughout the development.

9. Mobile Compatibility

Keeping in mind the ever-growing usage of smartphones, tablets, and phablets, web design must be effective for various screens. If your website design doesn’t support all screen sizes, the chance is that you’ll lose the battle to your competitors. There are a number of web design studios or service points from where you can turn your desktop design into a responsive and adaptive one for all screen sizes.

10. Maintain high discoverability

Clearly label icons and include well-indicated affordances: e.g., shadows for buttons.