I have put together some top tips for people that want to get into web design but don’t know where to start. This is a simple but practical guide to begin your web design journey. If you are a student looking to study web design, or you are already employed and want to branch out and develop your skills further, this is the guide for you. Even if you are a professional web designer, this article will be handy as a reminder to ensure you are ticking all the boxes on the websites you are designing.
When designing websites, the user experience must be considered at every step of the process, from idea to planning, designing, and building. In my opinion, the designing stage of building a website is the essential stage. If you have a website that doesn’t look great, even if it has excellent content, users will be reluctant to use the site. After all, first impressions are crucial in any marketing, and it is no different in web design. Here are my top tips for website design:
Use three fonts maximum
You want to ensure that the fonts you choose work well together and don’t cause the design to feel cluttered. I usually stick to one or two fonts and use different thicknesses depending on whether it’s a heading or paragraph. Nevertheless, at most, I only use three different fonts. It is also a good idea to use fonts that are easy to read and that they are at a size that is comfortable for all users, which is typically 14-16pt for paragraphs, around 20pt for sub-headings, and depending on the design of your website, main headings can be anywhere from 30-70pt.
Use colours that work well together.
Maintain a consistent colour palette rather than a lot of variation, much like you would with fonts. Your website needs to have a consistent colour scheme. It’s also a good idea to make all call-to-actions (CTA) stand out on the page so that users can quickly identify each. This way, you draw the user to act on the site, such as requesting a quote. There are many great online tools that you can use to help you choose a colour scheme, such as htmlcolorcodes.com and Coolors.
Use plenty of white space
White space is essential when designing websites. You want to provide space so the user can navigate between page sections. It also helps draw emphasis on specific areas of the page and makes the user want to interact with your site. If you only have lines and lines of text on your page, the user will be put off and find it hard to see what they are looking for. Don’t be afraid to use plenty of white space to produce easy-to-understand and navigate content.
Structure your design in a grid
It’s essential to structure your content evenly; the best way to think about this is to design your website in a grid. Because all devices are rectangular, it’s best to structure the content similarly, making it easy to navigate and make sense of the information on the page.
Design with Mobile in Mind
Half of all internet searches are on mobile devices, so it’s essential to design with mobile devices in mind in this day and age. Because you don’t know where your users are going to be searching from, you need to make sure your websites look great on devices of all sizes. This is much easier when you use the grid structure mentioned above.
Implement Content Hierarchies
Using content hierarchies isn’t only crucial for web design. It is essential for SEO too. Using heading tags such as H1, H2, H3, etc., lets search engines and your user know what the main points are and are subtopics. It’s also a great way to structure the information so that the user can find what they are looking for and evenly spread out the content, both important points mentioned in other sections of this list.
Summary
We cover various topics, from web design, web development, SEO, and graphic/logo design. If you want to learn more about web design and websites in general, check out our other blog posts. Reach out if you have any questions. We would love to help you on your web design journey.