5 Web Design Tips: keep it clean

Everyone hates messy!  An untidy desk, garage or wardrobe where you just can’t find anything fast.  The same applies to web design!

Here are 5 worthy tips to take on board when designing a website.

1.  Leave Some Whitespace

There’s nothing worse than a site that feels cluttered and swamped with too many choices.

Make use of margins and padding CSS styling and keep a good space length between images and paragraphs.  Use large headings to break up the text into manageable sections that are easy to read.

2. Communication and Messaging

Clear messaging on your website is so important.  Too much text on the home page is a NO, NO!  Avoid large paragraphs and keep it sweet and short and convey your message concisely.

Make it obvious to your customers what you are offering – if they can’t make a decision in 5 seconds, there is something wrong and they will hit the panic button (back button),  and leave your site.

Pages need to be easily scannable with the right balance of images and text with call to actions in the right places.  Visitors  look for titles, bold, emphasized text, highlighted text or lists.

Rob Bale, the creative director from Start a Design reinforces the point, “Some clients come to us with already chosen templates and attempt to fit  their ideas around an existing design.  Designing a website from scratch, from research, usability testing, data and really understanding your customers habits is what we will do from the onset and this will create a final website that will take your business further. ”

 3. Use Easy To Read <Fonts>

Don’t make your visitors squint with tiny, small fonts.  Using typeface that the hubble telescope would just be able to make out is not the way to go!

4.  Create Landing Pages for  Offers and Campaigns

Create dedicated designs for specific offers and discounts of your products or services.  The simpler the better.  If using forms, avoid captchas and ensure that isn’t over complex or too long to complete.

5.  Call to Actions and Hyper Links

It’s important that you don’t include graphics that look like buttons but actually aren’t.    Use common call to action effects and symbols like ‘>>’.   Make sure that hyperlinks are a different colour and when hovering they change again.