Website design ideas
Source: Pixabay
Original post can be found here: The Usability Spot
Here you will find some great website design ideas, with the purpose to offer users on your site a great User experience.
Usability and a visually attractive site goes hand in hand, when it comes to the User Experience (UX). And of course that the content on your site gives value to the users. But it is important to remember that experience and what people like differ a lot and are personal, which makes it even more crucial for you to know your audience (users). Another way to make your site "feel and look good" is to keep to praxis in web design. With that I mean some basic ideas about color, fonts, layout and so on.
A lot of people are using Wordpress to create their websites, most themes are flexible when it comes to color, fonts, layout but if you can't do what you wish to do, there are thousands of themes to choose from. If you need help with the basics in Wordpress, read more here: The ultimate guide on how to build a website in Wordpress.
Ideas to get you going
Start with your target group:
– Who is about to visit your site?
– What will they try to find?
– What do your visitors need help with?
Approach them with your content. I think it's important to know user needs and be able to help with that rather than try to help everyone on this planet. Better to hold on to a niche than write about random stuff. If you like to turn to different target groups: create several websites instead of putting all content on one site!
How to design your site
Source: Pixabay
An important thing to remember is that people seldom READ all your content. They scan. Which is why it's crucial to help scanning. Use images, bulleted and numbered lists, headlines and so on. Below there is 6 tips that help you design your site to also help scanning.
6 important guidelines
Clues: give hints about where to go next, what buttons to click and where people are in your site. That can be done with text, breadcrumbs, site map and so on. You can also put in constraints that give few choices what to do next.
Placement: related functionality should be placed near each other. Example: text and related picture and link should be placed together so it's clear that they are related.
Clear and simple: not to much widgets and sidebars! A crowded page is hard for people to "scan" and most people leave even if the content is good. Help people decide quickly if your site can help them find what they are looking for.
Navigation: it should be clear how to navigate on your site. Not to many different kind of menus, remember that a search field will take people far. Stick to a main menu and maybe a menu for categories.
Content: create value for the users in your site. Help them and guide them. Be as unique as you can. Get feedback on your content from people you trust or even better from people in your target group.
Readability: work with colours, fonts and size. Remember that always use colours that contrast each other for readability. Black text on white background, offers the best contrast and is commonly used on many websites. Use fonts that is easy to read. Choose a sans serif font for your website. Do not forget to use different fonts and size for headlines to help scanning the page. Read more about colours and fonts on "thenextweb".
Source: Pixabay
A great way to find out if you meet your users needs or if your site have a great usability is to do some user testing.
I hope you have got some idea about how to make a great User Experience on your website. I also hope you got inspired to learn some more. And remember that usability and User Experience go hand in hand. You can read more about this in my earlier post about good website design.