There are hundreds of choices and lots of surprises when it comes to web design, some more suitable than others. However this all comes from experience which takes many years to gain. However, there are some important basics you should follow to bring in a wider audience and make the look and feel of your website much better.
The first step is Visual Hierarchy.
This doesn’t just mean how your website looks it also means how it is formatted. For example if you are a company that is interested in starting to write blog posts then you need to be aware that if your blogs are text heavy and include zero to a couple of images then your audience will lose focus and stop reading. Having text in different places and having interesting Images are essential for your blog because it’s not all crammed together, there’s images to look at rather than multiple paragraphs you will lose interest with, and will then be a pleasure to read.
Not everyone will read a web page word for word; they will scan the page and pick up on certain parts which is called eye-mapping. This is where heat maps come into consideration and you can read more about how important and useful heat maps are here. If all your text is together in straight paragraphs people aren’t going to see them when they scan the page so little bits of text and images here and there work better on homepage and other main pages such as contact and about pages.
The second step is Choosing your fonts.
Next you’re going to want to think about the fonts you are going to use because some people are unable to read certain fonts if they are completely ridiculous. Also, some fonts may not work in other browsers and they need to look suitable for that part of the webpage too.
For example if we make a new website and we want a heading at the top with a big bold font we would choose a font from this page because they stand out and are easily readable. You can have a fancy style if you like but it really depends on the company sector. If you were an arts and crafts company then one of these fonts would every suitable for your website.
Remember this following rule: Serif fonts for headlines, Sans Serif fonts for body text. I suggest visiting Google Fonts and checking how much page load your selected font(s) will use because the larger the font files are the slower your web page will be and this will not please the audience.
The third step is the colour of your website.
The use of colours is crucial to give a website a simple or a complex look and can make your website a success or a failure, this is how important colour selection is. Colours have their own visual hierarchy rules, and your website will be a success if you focus on using a maximum of about three colours following consistency in places then your site will look modern and clever.
Images on your website should also follow this colour scheme is possible, if not you may want to add a border around the image. I suggest following either your company colours, an RGB (Red, Green, Blue) scheme or a flat animated style. See examples below. As you can see from the images below these sites follow a nice colour scheme and they are easy to read. Our eyes are attracted to them straight away because they are cleverly presented and if you want your website to be a success you should come up with an original colour scheme that works for your company.
