1. Purpose sets the
foundation
A website’s messaging and calls to action are key to
supporting its goals. A site’s purpose can be as simple as promoting purchases,
telling a company’s story, or providing tutorials. You should be able to
capture your site’s intent in a sentence or two — think mission statement.
Toronto Web Design Company
A site design isn't something you should make up as you go
along. A purpose will give you a clear plan and guide the design and content
creation. Winging it isn't a practical design philosophy.
Part of solidifying your site’s purpose is knowing who it's
for — who is your audience, what information do they need, and how will your
site provide it? Knowing your audience’s demographics and pain points will help
you find the right direction for your site.
There are the broad intentions of a design and there are the
specifics of a marketing strategy to beat the competition. How will visuals and
content reinforce your brand and make it stand out? And how can your site
provide more value than your competitors? Building a brand and building an
audience is important.
2. Content gives
meaning
Quality content is useful, clear, and guides your audience
toward actions you want them to take. SEO should be planned for and woven into
the content. SEO can be thoughtfully and tastefully executed with a
conversational tone that integrates keywords and phrases that don’t distract
from your message.
Defining your site’s purpose helps inform the content you
need and adopting a content-first approach means working with real content from
the beginning of the design process. Real content makes it easier to spot
changes that need to be made along the way instead of drowning in adjustments
and overhauls at the end.
3. Visuals keep
people engaged
Every design element should reflect and communicate a
brand's identity. Photos, illustrations, and other graphics balance out text
and break up the web page, giving the eyes a rest from reading.
An exciting hero image makes a good first impression.
Animated transitions and scroll-triggered effects keep people moving and take
navigation from a mindless necessity to an interactive experience. Regardless
of a brand’s style, visuals should add energy to a design instead of just
taking up space. Software companies, food trucks, and accountants can all be
creative with their site’s graphics while staying on-brand.
Your visuals should be high-quality and look good — use
clear, color-balanced photos and graphics with appropriate size and resolution.
Bad visuals can ruin a great design.
4. Harmony makes a
design sing
Every important element of a layout should work together —
right down to its HTML and CSS. If the oversized button in a contrasting color
doesn’t have good reasons for its nonconformity, it won’t feel right.
Incongruities distract and interrupt the user experience. It’s hard to see the
overall great when something feels off. On the same token, bad user experience
can cause website visitors to bounce — hurting your chances of ranking in
Google.
A good designer makes things user-friendly and knows what
fonts, visuals, and types of navigation capture attention. They have a vision
for how they all fit together. New designers are often tempted to cram as much
excitement they can into a layout. But when too many elements are demanding our
attention, we lose focus.
Skilled web designers are thoughtful about the weight of
each element and they know when to use restraint. They know how to create a
page design that’s effortless to navigate. This sense of harmony also extends
to the brand identity. Everything from the site’s voice and tone to the color
palette should be consistent.
Toronto Local SEO Company
Brand guidelines and a living style guide can help with
consistency. Brand guidelines serve as a comprehensive explanation for
everything from content to colors. And a living style guide shows how everything
looks together and makes site-wide changes easy and immediate.
5. Typography shapes
perception
Typography is a vessel for thoughts. Along with the actual
words, the shapes and stylization of letters convey meaning. Typography is like
a decoder ring, translating an author’s ideas into a visual representation.
Fonts should suit both the placement choice and tone of a
design. Cursive typefaces may work well for headings or decorative purposes,
but they’re impractical for large blocks of text.
The wrong font can undermine important content. Just ask the
scientists who announced the discovery of the Higgs boson particle with a
slideshow featuring Comic Sans. People had quite a bit to say about this choice
of typography. And who knows — maybe the naysayers were wrong? Be sure to know
and like your reason for choosing a font.
There’s room in a design for traditional typefaces and ones
with more personality. For large blocks of content and other important
information, a straightforward font makes for better readability. Stylized
typography should be treated like strong spices — add a little here and there
for a bit of flavor.
6. Organization
unifies
Content should have logic, flow, and fit into a hierarchy.
Your content should guide your audience to an inevitable conclusion, each piece
building on what came before it. Each sentence should offer more clarity about
your brand and purpose, keeping readers reading in anticipation of what’s next.
Header tags should be used to structure content and help web
crawlers rank your site for web searches. If you don’t have all the finalized
content before starting a design, at least use headers to help frame what
you’re building.
Visual elements should also be organized. Define sections
with images and graphics that complement the written content. Social Media Agency Toronto
7. Colors set the
tone
Using their product’s packaging and ingredients to inform
the site’s color palette, Simply Chocolate’s design flows with their brand and
shows off their tasty chocolate bars.
The palette you choose for a design communicates so much. It
can be playful, like a toy company, or more serious for a site offering
financial services. A color scheme can do a lot to reflect a brand’s spirit and
message.
Choose colors that communicate your identity and — most
importantly — make the content easy to read. With that in mind, always run your
color combinations through a color contrast checker to ensure readability.
8. White space creates
balance
White space, buttons, and other visual design elements help
images and content stand out, and keep a layout from being cluttered. White
space, also known as negative space, is an important aspect of any utilitarian
design. Without it, messaging can turn into an indistinct blob.
9. Visual hierarchy
keeps navigation simple
The visual hierarchy of your site’s navigation should make
it easy to access your content in just a few steps. Of course, you don’t want
any content to be missed, but endless dropdowns, buttons, and internal links
will overwhelm people.
The pathways to your site’s sections and content should be
clear and easy to use. Imagine an intersection with 3 street options versus 10
— simplicity makes for a better journey.
Web Design Company Toronto
10. Authenticity fosters
trust
From their grassroots beginnings to being acquired by a
large corporation, Ben & Jerry’s communicated and stayed true to their
values.
“Good design is honest. It does not make a product more
innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to
manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.” — From Vitsoe’s “The power of good design.”
Consumers are savvy. They can see through shallow marketing
jargon — they want and expect brands to be real. Along with a site’s visual
sizzle, there should also be depth and authenticity. If you’ve ever landed on a
site with fake testimonials, you’ve probably immediately bounced. We know when
someone’s trying to pull one over on us, and it never feels good.
Cliches and vague marketing copy won’t help you connect with
people. Position your brand as a voice of authenticity by providing information
that has value and communicates the humanity behind your brand.
Website Development Company Toronto
