Web Design

As the Web Designer for my own Vancouver Web Designs business I have over the years created a certain look and style to how I build and create my web sites. Through a lot of trial and error I have found the absolute best ways not to build a successful web site. When I first started out my mentor at the time told me the best way to learn is by doing. He suggested to go out and surf the Internet and find web sites that I liked and dissect them. He told me to recognize what I liked and didn’t like about each web site. So I did.

What I found in those early years was what I can only describe as “Controlled Chaos”. The web sites of 10-15 years ago were a mess by today’s standards. Of course they were, it was the infancy of “The Web” and this was brand new to everybody. I have to admit there wasn’t much that I liked and it took me a long time to decide if Web Design was in my long term future.

Slowly over time certain web design standards came into place. Web Designers started recognizing that their visitors needed to be able to surf the web site as easily as possible, so navigation soon became a priority to a successful site. Navigation is probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to surfing and web site. I’ll touch on this more later.

Most of all I found a majority of web sites were just way to cluttered and disorganized to be anywhere near enjoyable. The web sites of yesteryear tried to throw too much at you all at once, episodes of epilepsy where at an all time high I’m sure. Most of the important information was lost on the surfer because they were inundated with Flashing Banners, Large Click Here links, Misdirects and Circle Jerks not to mention the dreaded Pop Up/Under ad that took forever to get rid of.

Web Design and Layout

Make it look good! Its that simple. There is a reason why a majority of the sites look a lot like each other. Because it works, they’ve figured it all out for you. Why would you ever think you know better than those that came before you. Sure there can always be exceptions to the rules but those are few and far between. Your Web Design and Layout are the very first thing that your visitor will see. Try to make it as pleasant an experience as it can possibly be for them. There are a number of different ways to accomplish this.

Make the Web Design and Layout of your site as easy on the eyes as possible. Try to not scare away your visitor, remember you want them to stick around and more importantly you want them to bookmark your site to ensure that they do come back.

Use a mixture of Dark and Soft colours if at all possible.

A lot of websites basically can be broken down into three or four areas. You have your Header(this is the top of the page), Your Content Area(usually in the middle also a Sidebar can be located here). Sidebars are where the Navigation is usually located, it can be located either Left or Right of the Content Area. The Navigation can also be in a Navigation Bar which tends to be sandwiched in between the Header and Content Area. Lastly is the Footer which is at the bottom of the site.

The Header is where I tend to use a Strong colour, something very deep that really pops if at all possible. Like the colour I used for my own website TMC Web Designs, I used an orange with a gradient. My previous logo design was with orange lettering on a very dark blue background. I knew when it came to a new design that I wanted to keep a familiarity to my previous design so I kept some elements. The orange seemed the best way to go. It was vibrant and it really popped, especially when I added the silver and black logo text.

Once the Header colours were set in my mind I knew that black and white were gonna play a big part in the rest of the Web Design and Layout. The next step was to contrast the orange with an eye catching area that I knew had to be black. So the Slider was conceived to break up the page before the Content Area. I tried a number of different sliders to see which ones looked and felt the best to me and in the end settled on the one I have. After a lot of tweaking I got it to where I needed it to be. It serves its purpose in showcasing different aspects of my site that I want to promote.

The Content Area was always gonna be a white space area(well actually a Grey and white gradient so it comes off as silver). I have always found that reading dark text off of a light background colour to best. My very first website I ever built was completely black with white text. I swear I got a headache every time I looked at it.

Back in the early days I remember seeing a lot of websites with red backgrounds and blue text and just shaking my head.

Navigation

This is still my biggest pet peeve when it comes to a large number of websites still to this day. They are unnavigable. Navigation should be simple, if it isn’t then you are trying to pull something on your visitor. If I can’t find what I’m looking right away I leave the site. If I do venture into the site deeper but find I’m lost and the only way to get back to where I want to be is to hit the Browser Back Arrow then you’ve lost me as well.

The navigation should remain consistent on every page.

No matter the size of the site you should always be able to get back to the first page no matter how far in you’ve surfed through. Your navigation should be in at least two out of the three place mentioned earlier. Navigation Bar at the top, Navigation Box on the sidebar or the Footer Links at the bottom.

You can even have additional navigation in the Content Area. For this type of navigation I would have navigation string at the top of the content. This would be a simple text link string or as some call it a breadcrumb trail. Say if you have surfed four pages deep into a site. For an example I will use a Golf website to better show you what I mean.

Home < Golf Equipment < Golf Clubs < Callaway Clubs

So in the above example I am on the Callaway Clubs page of the Golf Clubs area in the Golf Equipment Section. Now if I wanted to get back to the Golf Equipment Section I would simple click that text link that say Golf Equipment. I would then be able to go say a Golf Accessories page next with having to click my back arrow two times.

A simple little navigation string or breadcrumb trail has helped your visitor enjoy their experience immensely more than if you didn’t have it.

Navigation…so important.

I think I’m going to stop right there and maybe pick it up again in a later article.

So that is all for now, I hope you enjoyed the read.