Designing any company website is usually a tricky undertaking. The designer must juggle the expectations of the clients who, more often than not, prevent new concepts and ideas from emerging. Web design is not for everyone. But if someone wants to learn even the basics, there are tricks he can do to successfully create a website.
Listed below are design tips for people with limited (or zero) coding skills. These methods are universal. A noob residing in the Windy City wishing to improve his Chicago web design and a novice designer from China can both benefit from these design tips.
- Keep the web design simple
If you’ve taken a web designing course or self-studied design, you may have come across graphics software such as Adobe Photoshop. Use this software to add simple designs and graphics that suit the website at the same time can entice visitors.
- Get the attention of site visitors with communicative graphics.
It’s always recommended to use communicative images to keep the momentum of user engagement. Just avoid using too many graphics that will overwhelm the website visitors.
- Work with a consistent theme.
Avoid using extreme variations for different web pages. Maintain a consistent and universal theme for the website so the visitors won’t get confused while moving from one page to another.
- Make the navigation effortless.
Cutting down the visitors choices may seem counterintuitive, however, it can direct them to the site’s best content. Instead of bombarding the visitors with links to every page, streamline the navigation. Get rid of the dropdown menus – particularly the multi-tier ones that only the most proficient mouse user can get around. Go a step further by minimizing the number of links in the site’s header and sidebar.
- Get inspired by the colors of nature
If finding the best color combination for the website is a struggle, go with the shades of nature. They never fail. They can instantly attract the attention of visitors because they’re usually comforting and vibrant. For general website photos, take pictures of the natural wonders in the neighborhood or look for landscape photos online.
- Improve the font size
Typography is exceedingly crucial in web design. The text is sometimes difficult to read on a computer screen, much more on the display of a smartphone or a tablet. Highlight the relevant parts of the website. A good way to do this is to increase the font sizes, particularly for titles and significant blocks of text. Consider increasing the size of the regular font, too.
- Take advantage of white space.
It may be difficult to believe that using white space is a compromise, but considering the quality of websites these days, most can use more white space. Not every blank section of the screen must be crammed with content. Give the design room to breathe, and the visitors can find things easier and faster.
- Benefit from Pinterest mood boards.
When piecing together inspiration and concepts for a new site, a place to collect all the ideas in one place is needed. Pinterest is the perfect place to create mood boards to picture layouts, fonts, images, and concepts together.
And the best tip of all: practice, practice, practice.