Friday, August 7, 2009

Web Design - Principal Elements

There are six basic elements for a good web design that are the simplicity, the visual balance, the proportion, the contrast, the fluidity and the harmony.

Let's start with the first one. The simplicity is the most important principle when we talk about web design. After all, the World Wide Web wants to make things simpler and it also wants more accessible public information. Visitors should not struggle too hard in order to get to your website content. If possible try to use "three clicks rule", which means that no information should be more than three clicks away. If you hide the information from menu after menu, you will only frustrate your visitors or you will oblige them to move to something else (click, click, click, click, click, forget it!).

The visual balance is another important principle of web designing. Many inexperienced designers feel the need to fill every pixel of information. Every element of web design has an optical influence in print language that is called ink density. Web page should have a header and footer section; this creates visual parts of your site and it makes it easier to navigate in and the colour shade should be the same. Well this positively is not the best method of communication. Ink density is required that any Web page to create a balance from the beginning to the end. In addition to that, do not underestimate the value of white spaces.

Proportion is should be also important principle of web designing. The human eye tends to favour the different proportions of length and width. It is more pleasing for the eye to view a rectangle in a proportion than a perfect square.

The contrast is very simple to explain the public will come to a close to listen if you shout from the beginning be sure someone will pay attention if you just whisper and suddenly shout really loudly. Other advice would be to avoid using a single type of "treatment" for your text. For example: use either bold or italics but you are advised not to use both of them together. Another mistake is to create very dense text documents ignoring the inclusion of white spaces; it makes the readers see a gray wall.

Be careful also about the fluidity. The visitors tend to scan pages quickly first and then decide to read what interests them. The first looks are fixed on unusual forms and then the visitors begin to analyse the text. A good web page leads the visitor to the desired point.

Last but not least, your site must be balanced. In other words, the pages must complement each other, to show that go hand in hand. You can do this by keeping the same structure and the same rudiments on every page.

All the six principal elements of web design are equally important and complement one another. To create the desired experience for the visitors you are advised to maintain a balance of all these elements.