December 12, 2007

"How do you create a great design for your website? You follow this simple advice."

The question has been asked, "What makes up a good website design?"

While the question is a complicated one, the answer is simple.

Unfortunately, not many people know about the simple answer to "what makes up a good website design?" There are a lot of people who will tell you that flashy effects make a good website design. And there are a few people will who tell you that only extremely simple designs can make for good websites. There are even some people who will tell you that a good website design can only be created through a certain type of programming.

They're all wrong.

While flashy effects can definitely add - but sometimes take away - from a good website design, they are not what makes a website's design good. Similarly, extremely simple designs for websites can be useful for some occasions, but generally being as simple as possible is not the best way to create a good website design. And no matter what anyone tells you: any type of web programming can make a good website design, depending on the purpose of the website.

So, how do you create a great design for your website? You follow this simple advice:

A good website design should not be confusing, it should completely engage visitors, and it should invoke visitors to take some sort of action.

Keep it simple, but not too simple.

One of the biggest aspects of a good website design is how easy it is to understand. Can your visitors immediately identify where the website navigation is? If someone was visiting your website for the first time would they instantly know what it was about?

You want your visitors to understand what they are doing on your website, how they got there, and what they can do from there on out. A good website design shouldn't be confusing. There shouldn't be too many effects and too many things that might confuse your visitors.

Acknowledge and engage visitors.

Keeping things simple ensures a high-quality website, but making things too simple might make your website seem boring and uninteresting. So how do you avoid being too simple? You actively acknowledge and then engage your visitors through classic design elements.

Big fonts that say "welcome", or having a space for visitors to log-in, etc. are great ways to acknowledge your visitors. Make them feel like they need to be on your website and they will stay - or come back time and time again.

Give visitors a reason to be there.

Sure, having a fairly simple website design that acknowledges visitors is the perfect start to creating a good website design, but it's not all you can do.

The best thing any web design can do is create purpose, or invoke action, for visitors. Whether you're trying to sell something, explaining something new, or just trying to get attention, make your visitors click on something.

And get creative with action too. Instead of showing your visitors a gallery of large pictures, make them click through to see different ones. Or, better yet, make your visitors adapt to not being able to click at all.

These tips are some great starting point for creating a good website design. Follow the advice you've been given here and you are guaranteed to have a better looking - and functioning - website.

If all else fails, just design your website to be like a man. And if you really need advice for your website, why not subscribe to Internet Hunger and get great information almost daily? Go on, do it.