Web Design

Best Practices in Modern Web Design

Having a website these days is practically a need for any business. In a world where businesses are increasingly operating online, a website serves as a digital business card, enabling brands and enterprises to communicate with potential customers while sharing useful information about their goods and services. But not every website is made equally. A clean, user-friendly website’s design will captivate the user, keep them interested, and essentially guide them through the platform’s content.

Without this straightforward but important feature, a website visitor can have trouble locating the page they require. In the worst-case situation, the website visitor can become so irate that they abandon the page, which would be a missed chance for the company seeking to win over that potential client.

One instance of logical web design in action is the prominent menu bar at the top of the website’s homepage. Having said that, building a fantastic website requires much more than just a menu bar.

So we’ve collected more than 30 best practices for designing modern websites, from General Instructions to Multimedia Content. Covering everything, Background, Blog Design, colour, forms and logins, Icons, functionality, Graphics and Images. Along with the practices we covered more information to help you visualize what we’re talking about.

1: General Instructions 

There are several general rules for modern web design that apply to multiple categories or are just helpful and shouldn’t be neglected. These cover a wide range of techniques, such as the use of dummy text, hover effects, and quickening page loads. Some general practices are listed below:

Use Hover Impacts: 

There are many ways to employ hover effects, and they may add a lot of usefulness to your website. Don’t ignore the greater functionality that can be accomplished using hover effects, whether you want to just highlight a link when it is hovered over or have the item transform altogether.

Use Dummy Text

Without any text to deal with, it can be very difficult to lay out a page. Lorem Ipsum or other dummy text makes the life of a designer much simpler. If you show clients an Ipsum mockup, just be ready for their inevitable criticisms.

Verify Your Site Purpose

Anyone visiting your website should be able to understand its purpose as soon as they arrive at any page. Taglines are one method of communicating this. Additionally, you can use pictures, short introductory language (in headers is preferable), or other distinguishing details. Don’t forget to pay attention to the content of your meta title tag.

Make Your Page Load Times As Quick As Possible

Even though a sizable portion of internet users now use broadband, dial-up is still widely used by some. Websites with a lot of graphics or multimedia might even slow down DSL. To appeal to as many people as possible, keep your load times as short as you can. Also, read Starting Your Career in Design.

2: Backgrounds

Don’t Be Scared By Large Backgrounds

Large background graphics can give your website a lot of flairs. They are avoided by many designers because they are difficult or complex to execute. But there are many resources available right now to include big backdrops on your website. It’s a trick that can truly make your design stand out from the competition.

Ensure That The Large Background Image Is Enough Large

Background images must function on a monitor with a resolution as high as 1920×1080 (the standard resolution for HDTV) or 1920×1200 as monitor sizes rise. If you’re only designing on a screen with a resolution of 1024×768, likely, at least some of your visitors can’t see what you can.

Check That Your Background Image Tiles Are Set Up Correctly

 Nothing is worse than a tiled background image that doesn’t match. Make sure the background tiles seamlessly whether you’re utilising a background that was made by someone else or making your own.

Backgrounds Don’t Need To Be Complex

While having a large background can give a website a lot of personalities, a simple background can also have a significant influence. If your background doesn’t have much of an impact, you’ll need to focus more on other aspects of your website, but it can improve user experience (depending on the purpose of your site).

3: Blog Design 

Purpose: Readability

The bulk of blog visitors come for the content. Design plays a supporting role. While this doesn’t imply you should ignore how your blog looks, make sure all of the components are complimenting, not detract from, you’re content.

Keep Your Sidebars Clean

Some sidebars seem to continue forever, even after the rest of the page’s content has ended. Put them in pairs. Your sidebars should only contain relevant information. If using two sidebars makes the page less cluttered, do so. Additionally, be sure to maintain a unified aesthetic theme throughout all of the sidebar’s components.

Accurately Integrate Advertising

If you’re going to have advertising on your website, make sure it matches the overall style and design. If you’re utilising text advertising, check that the link and font colours complement (or are complimentary to) the colours used throughout the rest of your website. Make sure your banner advertising, if you include them, is formatted in a way that connects them to the rest of your website (either with borders, drop shadows, or whatever is appropriate based on your design).

Make Subscribing Easy

Make sure it’s simple to subscribe to your RSS feed. One excellent approach to make it simple for folks to subscribe is by using an oversized RSS icon. Your subscription rates can rise significantly if you include a “subscribe by email” option. Make sure your RSS icon is at the top of your page, preferably above the fold (the top of your sidebar or even in your header are both great locations).

Incorporate It In Other Social Media Blogs

If you use Twitter, include a direct link to your Twitter feed in your blog. It’s an excellent approach to increase your Twitter following whether you put it in the sidebar, footer, or even the header. Why not put your most current photos or videos, if you use Flickr or YouTube, directly in your sidebar or somewhere else on your blog? This is particularly crucial if the content of your other social media feeds is connected to that of your blog. Make sure it’s simple for blog readers to share your information with others through their own social media channels in addition to linking your feeds with your blog. Also, read about Tooltips For Mobile User Interfaces.

5: Buttons and Icons 

 Using buttons and icons for navigation or other features on your site can give it a lot of personalities and improve usability. However, there are a lot of considerations to make when selecting or creating buttons and icons, from consistency to sizing. Effectively utilising buttons and icons gives your site’s design a fresh perspective and frequently takes it to the next level.

Use Icons That Are Appropriate And Consistent

Numerous free icon sets are available. Thousands more premium icon sets are also available. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find one that blends in with the rest of your website’s design. Whatever you decide make sure the rest of you design elements are reflected in it, and that all of your site’s icons are the same. In other words, avoid combining glossy and grungy icons.

Use Buttons To Highlight Certain Navigation Elements

 For basic web navigation, buttons are not a fantastic option. However, employing a button is a terrific approach to making a particular navigation element standout. When you press a button in real life, something happens. On your website, the same ought to apply. For downloading files, adding items to a shopping carrot wish list, or performing other actions, buttons are fantastic. To give your button greater significance and impact, make sure it sticks out against the rest of the design.

Headers, Buttons, Or On Buttons Are The Best Places To Use Icons

 An excellent method to call attention to a certain section of your website is to include an icon in your header (such as an RSS feed). In this situation, you must be careful to include the icon in your design to avoid making it appear tacked on. Another excellent application is to employ well-known icons as buttons. Make an icon more useable without text by combining it with a hover effect that displays a description finally, a wonderful technique to give your buttons a little more personality is to incorporate an icon into a button that also contains the text.

6: Colour

Check That The Colour Used In Different Elements Is Inappropriate Contrast

This mainly relates to text and background colours. To make reading easier, make sure there is enough contrast between the colour of the text and the background it is set against. On the other hand, be careful not to use true contrasting hues (like blue and orange, yellow and violet, red and green, etc.) as your text will be nearly impossible to see and too much contrast can be hard on the eyes, especially when it’s light text against a dark background.

Reduce The Number Of Colours Used Beyond Images

 Sometimes it seems like a fantastic idea to use ten or twelve colours on a website. But in reality, it rarely works and frequently makes your website appear crowded and overly active. Avoid using more than three or four hues in your colour scheme outside of photos, and make sure they don’t conflict. If working with colour isn’t your strong suit, there are many online colour palette makers you can use.

Use Gradients

Subtle gradients can add a lot more attention and style to a simple background or another element. It’s a terrific way to add some visual interest to your site, whether you employ a gradient that changes from one hue to another or between two tones of the same colour.

7: Forms And Logins

Registration Formats Should Be Easy As Possible

People don’t like to fill out lengthy, lengthy forms that ask for a lot of personal information. The most concise and straightforward registration forms are the finest. As far as possible, try to keep your registration forms to one screen.

Make Form Validation Friendly

The usage of real-time form validation, which alerts you instantly if a user enters incorrect data or omits a field that must be filled out, is beneficial to those attempting to register on your website or complete another form. Make sure not to delete the form’s data if the validation process fails, and make it clear right away why it failed. Otherwise, you run the risk of losing users with a registration or contact process that merely seems overly complicated.

8: Functionality

Make Sure Your Website Has A Search Function

Include a search bar to make it simpler for users to find content on your website, unless it is very, very little (one or two pages). Make sure the search results are likewise arranged in a way that is simple to peruse.

Ensure That All Of Your Links Work 

Make sure there are no broken links on your website—this shouldn’t even need to be mentioned. Both internal and external links to other websites fall under this.

Verify That Elements Work As Desired In Different Browsers

 What appears correctly in Firefox might not seem the way you wanted it to in Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, or Opera. There are online tools that you may use to view how your website looks in various browsers, versions of those browsers, and operating systems. Also, read about Useful Boilerplates.

9: Graphics and Images

Improve Your ALT Tags

Alt tags have two functions. First off, it lets whoever is viewing your page know what the image was supposed to be if it fails to load for some reason. Second, alt tags, which describe what a picture is showing search crawlers because they can’t read photos, can significantly enhance your search results. Adding an alt tag to each image simply takes a few more seconds, and the advantages are well worth it.

Please Use Image Title Tags

The SEO value of title tags can also be increased. But more crucially, title tags make it simpler to change objects by just using their names if your website uses JavaScript.

Examine The Overall Impact Of Each Image Or Graphic

Images and graphics can have a significant impact on how consumers perceive your site’s purpose and how it appears to them. Make sure to consider how each graphic or picture modifies the website’s overall aesthetic. This entails paying attention to the image’s colour palette, space within the frame, and subject matter.

10: Multimedia Content

Make Sure Video And Audio Content Does Not Autoplay 

Users may find autoplaying video and audio content particularly bothersome. Sometimes it even prompts users to leave a website without further exploration (especially when that content is in advertising on the site). Make the play button obvious so people know where to click rather than having music or video autoplay. Additionally, don’t permit advertising to use audio content that starts playing on its own.

If You Use Background Audio, Make Sure It’s Easy To Turn Off

If you insist on utilising audio as a site background, make sure users can easily turn the sound on and off. The easiest place to find a button to do this is generally going to be in your header or footer.

Last Thoughts

The appearance and user experience of your website won’t appeal to everyone because web design is in large part subjective. There are, however, tried-and-true UX concepts that, when carefully researched and used, assist in increasing visitors’ sense of comfort.

88% of website visitors are less inclined to return to a website after a negative encounter, according to Amazon Web Services. So start caring more as a final piece of usability/UX advice! Keep your visitors in mind at every stage of the design process by placing yourself in their shoes.

Naomi McCarthy
Naomi McCarthy

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