What are the Basics of Web Design?
When developing the design and layout of your site you must be strategic, deliberate, and logical. All of your decisions must have a motivating factor behind them. This includes pictures, fonts, colors, and button layout. Your goal is to create the optimal user experience to achieve your site’s objective. Develop the site based on your target persona and audience so that it resonates with them when they arrive. A definite goal should be to keep them on the site for at least 30 seconds or your bounce rate will sky rocket and your search ranking will plummet.
How do I select the right images?
The images you use should reflect your target demographic. If you are trying to gain business from the elderly in California your images would show retirees and the beach. Remember to use high quality pictures that are both unique and interesting. Implementing this strategy will allow users to see themselves using your service and will keep them engaged.
What role do fonts play in the site?
Fonts and typography specifically are very important. The style of font expresses a brand’s personality and identity. Different fonts evoke different emotions and value propositions while affecting the readability. Serif fonts have decorative accents and mimic a brush stroke style. These tend to come across as more professional and sophisticated. Sans Serif on the other hand does not have these decorative accents and is typically more legible and looks more modern thus standing out more. Script and decorative fonts often mimic handwriting and appear more creative and artistic. Because they are more abstract they sacrifice legibility for their bold statement.
How should I decide on the colors for my site?
Colors are very important whether it is for your site or your brand in general. The consumer will subconsciously form an opinion around your brand based on the color. You can also use colors to direct attention towards specific element by creating a sharp contrast.
Red shows energy, strength, love and aggression
Orange shows comfort, motivation, enthusiasm and positivity
Yellow shows joy, happiness, cheer and optimism
Green shows balance, health, peace and materialism
Blue shows tranquility, reliability, loyalty and trust
Purple shows luxury, loyalty, courage and mystery
Brown shows security, protection, reservation and banality
Pink shows understanding, love, nurturing and immaturity
Gold shows charm, luxury, egotism, and pride.
Black shows sophistication, seriousness, negativity and sadness
White shows purity innocence, cleanliness and emptiness.
How do I utilize the layout and place CTA’s correctly?
Your site needs to be easy to navigate and easy on the eyes. In addition to color theory, typography, and imagery the layout is going to play into the sites’ effectiveness. There are two types of space in design: Positive space contains all of the elements on a site and negative space is the empty space in between. Having the right amount of negative space gives the user a break from processing information. Create a visual hierarchy to indicate what is most important. Most times it is your call to action button that should be very prominent. Your CTA needs to provoke an immediate response and incite action. Avoid strong commands and wordiness, find a middle ground between directive and pushy while making the button eye catching.