Archive for January, 2009

Purpose

Monday, January 12th, 2009

Website design should have a purpose and a goal behind it.  It is quite easy to create something that is visually appealing but it serves no purpose.  The purpose of your website must be ingenuously communicated through clever design that works to deliver the core message of your site.

Code is consciously ignored during the design phase.  This may be surprising to many who are not involved in design, especially when it is logical that the designer and programmer should ideally work hand in hand.  But when it comes to good webdesign, the designer takes precedence then the coding is done, even though it may take some time.

Decoration or design with no rhyme or reason tends to hinder rather than help a website.  Once the underlying content is valuable, the design aspect will take care of itself.

Navigation

Monday, January 12th, 2009

There is nothing really worse than a very beautiful website that leads me to thinking “where am I?” and “what next?”

What is navigation and what is content should be as clear cut as night an day.  Sometime what are ‘clickable’ text or buttons is not clearly laid out and when the cursor should change over ‘clickable’ text or links, it does not.

It really does not matter how the site looks, or what fancy script you tack on, if the navigation does not make sense and the website is not simple and user-friendly, there will be minimum time spent on your site.
The navigation through any website is the most valuable element.   Really do your utmost and try to make sure that the site content is organised into clear cut, sensible sections and that links are visually different than the regular content and that the navigation then reflects this.