Creating An Efficient Website

Introduction

We all know that with every good company, there’s a good website behind it. But what makes a good website good, and a bad website bad?

Things to remember

-Above all else, you are building this website for the user, not for you. Everything you add to your website should start with the thought “how would the user be able to use this?” It is important to keep the user happy while they are using the website, because it increases their enjoyment, and the likelihood of them returning to the website again. ALWAYS keep the user in mind

The rule of symmetry

This is easily the most important rule to remember when creating a website. By making the webpage look symmetrical and even, it will give a sense of relaxation to the user, and it makes everything easily accessible as well. Your site should have colors that work together, as well as shapes that work together too. If you’re using circles, DON’T USE A LOT OF SQUARES AND TRIANGLES! stick with your circle theme to make it look much more appealing, and ultimately give off a cleaner, sleeker impression to the user.

Fonts

When designing your website, it will be tempting to use a bunch of crazy fonts to make your website feel more alive. But most people use either too many fonts, or too wacky fonts. This makes the website look unappealing and non-symmetrical. Using too many fonts will make the user confused and could make your website lose appeal In the long run. Another thing you should worry about is system limitations. If you use a crazy font that the user’s computer doesn’t have, the computer will replace it with its default font, giving your page a look entirely different than the way you intended. So always use standard fonts, and only use 2-3 fonts on the website, to make everything look like it fits together.

Rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is simple, and crucial to ensuring your webpage’s overall appeal. Imagine there is a 3×3 grid dividing the screen into 9 equal sections. These 9 sections are where the user’s eyes naturally drift, and it’s very important to the rule of symmetry. All of your important information should fall into one of the 9 sections, but there are a few guidelines you should follow before you start making boxes on the screen. Try this short experiment to see how the rule of thirds really comes into play. Take a piece of paper and draw a box, and pretend it’s a computer screen. Now draw the even 3×3 grid, and draw a dot on each point the lines intersect each other. Notice how there’s 4 dots evenly spaced on the middle of the screen? These are the “sweet spots” and are where your prime information should be touching. For aesthetic appeal, breaking the design up (horizontally and vertically) so that each third has a similar theme is a valuable way to make a design more interesting. If you use this rule, it doesn’t matter what you’re putting on the page, or what the background is, because if you have evenly placed your content into those grid guidelines, utilized the 4 sweet spots, your website will look more appealing, and more accessible to the user. Now that you know a little about the rule of thirds, go to any professional name website (even this one) and look for how the content is placed along the 3×3 grid. I’m sure you’ll now notice how good they do at directing your eyes to the important content In the 9 boxes and 4 sweet spots.

Mobile sites

Unless your target audience consists of apes, you’re going to want to build mobile site for the constantly expanding number of smartphone users out there. Building a Mobile version of your site will increase traffic and efficiency to your site from smartphone users, as a regular website is generally hard to navigate on the small touchscreen device.

The rule of horizontal scrolling

-Don’t. That is all.

Ferrell Fuller

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