11 Web Design Principles Every Web Designer Should Know

By Dhwani Madan | Website

A web design can be effective only when it fulfills its purpose of conveying correctly the message to the viewer. This is why, creative agencies, branding agencies, and website design companies usually try to make a very stellar design that can be understood and interpreted easily.

When it comes to wordpress web design perth, it is a landscape that is ever-changing. Anyone working with web design services needs to constantly learn, update and keep up with whatever is the latest in the industry.

So, how do the top websites that do stay on the top, stay on the top? It’s not just their marketing budget keeping them there on the top of the search engine results. There are certain web design principles that web designers follow which allow them to create stellar designs and perfect websites.

What are these principles? Let us understand in detail the top 11 principles!

Purpose should be clear

When building a website, the messaging and the CTAs are the keys that support the purpose and the goal behind it. The website’s purpose could be promotions, storytelling, providing learning, or selling something, the message and the purpose should be clear and crisp.

A website design isn’t something that can be made by going with the flow. It has to have a design that indicates what the company is trying to say. How can this be achieved?

By understanding the niche, the industry, the competitors, the target audience, and the mindset behind the creation of the company. Knowing the pain points, the demands, and the problem that the website/the company is going to solve is how the purpose will be established.

Content is King

Quality content is extremely essential for a good website design. It guides your audience towards taking action. The SEO should be seamlessly woven into the content with the right keywords.

Your website must adopt a content-first approach from the beginning of the process. Real content that is finalized for publishing and put into the new designs will actually help in spotting improvements, and pain points and also help with the ideation of designs.

When great content meets the needs of your audience, they will be delighted. The content is what makes your website unique and gives it value. It connects your audience with you.

Content gives the users a clear path to lead them to whatever they are searching for on your website.

Visuals should be engaging

Visuals are what keep the audience hooked and engaged with your website. The web design services you hire should be able to provide a design that communicates and reflects your brand’s identity.

Photos, illustrations, videos, graphics, and texts need to be balanced for giving the visitor’s eyes breaks in between. Transitions with animations, and effects triggered by scrolls, these things keep the audience moving on your website. This keeps them there long enough to get converted and also gives them an interactive, extraordinary experience.

At the same time, when talking about the visuals, they all need to be high-quality, good looking with clear color-balanced graphics.

Consistency and Clarity

Consistency is extremely important. You need to follow the brand guidelines and make sure that every page of the website is in sync and similar to each other when it comes to the color scheme, wireframe, and design. Consistency helps visitors to navigate through the website.

How can you maintain consistency?

Choose a color scheme with similar colors, shades, and hues throughout the website.

The typography has to be similar on each page so the website doesn’t look messy.

The navigational menu on each page should be in the same place (usually it is on the top as a header) as it will make things easier for users visiting the website.

Intuitive Navigation

Now that we have already mentioned navigation above, let us talk about it in detail. The website that your creative agencies make for you can be as flashy as you want but the user needs to feel at ease when scrolling for information.

They don’t need to get lost on the website trying to find something they came for. The navigation, the menus, the header, and the footer needs to be precise and easy to understand. Website navigation is an essential key for retaining visitors and hence, it needs to be smooth.

If the navigation of your website confuses the audience, they will switch and find what they were looking for elsewhere. Keep your website navigation simple and consistent on each page.

Typography

Typography is important as the shape and style of letters also convey a message to the users. It basically translates the ideas of the author into a visual presentation. Fonts chosen for the website should be suitable for the placement and the tone of the design.

The wrong font can make a good piece of content look bad. A straightforward font is ideal when it comes to large blocks of content that include important information.

Color palette

The color palette you choose signifies everything. The colors of your design communicate the personality of your brand. It reflects the message of the brand and communicates directly with your users.

Brand recall and recognition happen because of the brand colors most of the time. When website design companies or branding agencies work on choosing the colors for the website, the colors need to be vibrant and more expressive of the brand personality.

Also, when choosing the colors, they need to go well with the content and be able to highlight the best parts of your content.

Effective usage of Whitespace

Whitespaces on your website pages create balance. One of the most important design elements is the whitespace. You must know when to not fill the space with content or illustrations or graphics or animations.

Let the space breathe by not adding anything to it. Without actually putting up any elements or components, whitespaces add to the look of your website and help the page not look messy or cluttered.

Simplicity is important

When it comes to website design, many branding agencies and website design companies believe that simplicity and a minimalist look are the way to go.

Simplicity makes the page look less crowded, less noisy, and more reflective. A user when they read a clear, simple website is bound to like it and move forward with clicking on your CTAs.

Loading time

A website design is only perfect if the page loading time is also appropriate as per the target audience. If the speed of the page loading is slow and it is making the user wait more than 3-4 seconds, they are bound to move on to the next alternative.

It is essential that the loading time be kept to less than 3 seconds.

Mobile-friendliness

Everyone has a mobile phone now and people scroll more through their phones rather than fire up their laptops. People who have their desktops open, even when asked to check something new, will immediately open their phones.

Any good website design is always mobile-friendly for a large number of the user base surfing the page through their smartphones.

Conclusion

Web design is a major responsibility for branding agencies and web design service providers. Designers must abide by these basic 11 principles to ensure that the website design is effective, user-friendly, and easy to rank on the search engine.