The world of designs is a vast one if you are naive or a beginner. You won’t just be confused with several things in the basket, but also unrelated when you have no idea how to move ahead. And, when it comes to website design performed by a designer, they can often face blocks while designing specific models and graphics.
If you fall under such a category, this article is for you. Keep reading to know more about how to get started with web designs and improve on what you’re looking for.
1. Use Pinterest Mood Boards
Pinterest is one of the significant tools to develop mood boards. For this, collect visual material that you reckon would be advantageous in your quest to incorporate into your project for some directions and inspirations. These can be color schemes, images, existing websites, layouts, and many more. Besides, such a mood board can act as a central hub for all your website design inspiration.
In addition, you can also share them with collaborators and clients to contribute to their material.
2. Create a Step-by-Step System
What they say: failing to plan a system is planning to fail. This also implies that it is very much true with web designing. If you fail to capitalize on the website design, it might be because you have not dealt with the essentials and fundamentals yet. Only when all the basics are in place will one be able to put creative touches. If you want to know more, here is what planning may look like.
- Define the goal of your website – You must know what the website is supposed to achieve. And, if you do not, what is it suitable for? Reasonable objectives tend to be SMART, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely, to be more specific.
- Sketch a buyer’s journey – Irrespective of the overall objective; you must know the route of your visitor. From when they ponder on your website to whatever goal you have in mind. This is one of the ways to develop a popper structure to guide the visitors along the entire way.
- Produce your style guide — Producing one specific style guide can help you stay updated and consistent with your designs. It tends to define colors, fonts, and other designing elements. Utilizing one can promote uniformity, primarily when you are working with others. Google is one good example of this.
- Plan your SEO — Towards the end, you need to plan out search engine optimization. Create a map for your website to acknowledge how to structure the much-needed insight for search engines and visitors.
3. Focus on the Structure
Just like forming a strategy, focusing on the site’s structure can initially help you step away from the entire process and get a bird’s eye view. Furthermore, this can help you in various other things. For instance, by producing sketches on paper with one pen, you may forget about details like colors and corners for a moment. However, if you are utilizing a whiteboard or a flipchart, consider making the entire thing collaborative.
Even though you are hell-bent on utilizing your computer to design, you can simply use one of the squint tests. This simply implies that moving away from your screen and then squinting your eyes simultaneously. Besides, the entire blurred image will show what is obvious on your website and what the first visit or users will notice on the screen.
4. Stick With Web Standards
You cannot blame the designers for such a task. Every creative individual wants to explore their creative ends to mark a difference. That is a good thing. However, remember that it is necessary to mark some boundaries within which one can be a little creative. For instance, when it comes to web design, there are several established standards. Users and visitors are habitual of specific website elements and tropes. So, when you break such rules, it may put them off and eventually enable them to exit the site.
Among these established standards:
- Consistency in design and branding across every page
- The top left website logo
- Contact info mentioned in the top center or right
- Primary navigation throughout the screen’s top
- Main value/headline proposition and CTA on the homepage
- Header’s search feature
- Social media icons
5. Focus on CTA Buttons & Minimalism
When you realize the actions and goals of your pages and website, you can eliminate everything that does not serve the purpose. This can streamline the design and make it more pleasant to everyone. But, yet again, there is a lot of research to back this up. In one of the studies, Google found out that it gets negatively correlated with the site’s appeal and attraction points when it comes to visual complexities. In short, people do not wish to get overwhelmed with such changes.
Featured Image Credits: TNZ Web Solutions
