LESSON 07 – WEBSITE DESIGN RULES

DEFINING WEB DESIGN

Jeffrey Pineda explains web design in the following way:

Web design is all about the creation of an attractive and user-friendly website. It mainly focuses on the look and feel of that website. Anyone who is into e-commerce or into internet business knows that a website's interface is one of the most important tools that could draw in clients and customers.

Even before they discover what you really offer, the website would be the first thing they see. It is a make or break moment. It is either they find your site helpful and actually go on and read through the site, or it bores them to death so they leave immediately. It doesn't have to scream at your face. But it is a fact that poor content, usability and difficult navigation contributes to a high bounce rate. It is therefore essential to invest in high quality Web Design. Most companies outsource people to improve and develop their websites to save money and time since they're usually project based. Some web designers include web design outsourcing in their package, but majority still focuses on graphic design. The process is not easy as it sounds. They don't just instantly come up with something. Like any other project, it involves multiple disciplines such as corporate identity, animation, communication design, graphic design, human-computer interaction, photography, search engine optimization, typography, information structure, and interaction design. A balance of these would be a recipe for a sky rocketing conversion rate. (Source/Archived Article)

Note: Mr. Pineda is a web designer for company websites. It is in his best interest to make web design sound very advanced and fairly complex as it encourages companies to seek out people like him to create their website.

DEFINITIONS

Bounce rate – The percentage of new viewers to your site that arrive and leave immediately (with no plans to return).

Conversion rate – The percentage of new viewers to your site that stay for a good visit. This visit could include the purchasing of a product, the participation in discussion, the reading of information, the viewing of images, etc...

WEB DESIGN RULES

There is no perfect list of web design rules. And in fact, no matter how good a list looks, you will always be able to find a website that breaks a few rules and yet seems to be very functional and more importantly, very successful.

ARTICLE – Website Design Tips (by Micheal Bluejay)

This article contains a well-explained list of web design tips that all web designers should keep in mind. (You will be asked to summarize this article in your work.)

(Source/Archived Article)

OTHER KEY WEB DESIGN CONCEPTS

The article focuses on specific webdesign rules without discussing the impact of two other important factors:

· Page layout

· Colours

We will discuss these two topics and how they impact the look and feel of websites in our next lesson.