The Basics of Good Web Design

Date published: 2013-11-01

Good web design is epitomised by design that fulfills the needs of visitors to your website. Bad web design is designing your website to be advertising.

So why isn't it good web design to make your website a big ad...? Advertising is always forced on the consumer. The consumer sees advertising when they are actually pursuing other goals. They watch TV for entertainment and basically have to put up with the ads. The difference is that people are not forced to visit your website, they visit your website by choice. To use your website for marketing is a total misunderstanding of the whole concept of the internet. 99% of people simply don't get this even after reading this paragraph.

People visit your website for information. Good website design is simply about giving that information to the visitor in the simplest manner. Research has proven that visitors leave a website if the information they seek is not there or isn't presented simply.

Information that visitors seek:
• Contact details - which contact details you supply depends on how you prefer to do business. If you have a physical location and employ good sales staff - then you want to provide your physical address and a link to a map. If you prefer doing business via phone then a clickable link is important. If your business does business via email then a contact form is essential.
• Business Information - Often people simply want to check your opening hours. Maybe they also want to find out what you sell.

Look is also important... but it's not about having a sort-of related image stuck at the top of the page. It's about pleasing layout. Rounded corners lifted sections make a page of all text very pleasant. Spacing the text into small chunks wooks well too.