Web design can be fun, but it can also be time consuming and confusing. If you’ve never designed your own website, it can seem near impossible. But don’t worry, it’s not. There are numerous tools out there to help you create the perfect site, even if you have no design skills whatsoever.
To help you get started, I’ve put together a short list of things to consider when you’re starting the web design process. My top five tips for designing an attractive website include:
- Keep The User Experience At The Front Of Your Mind
If you want to build a successful website, you need to make sure that it’s user friendly and easy to navigate. This means that you should always keep the user experience at the front of your mind when you’re designing your site. Consider how people will react to different design elements and think about whether or not including something is going to add to or take away from your site.
- Keep Things Simple
It’s also important to make sure that you keep your website simple. This ties in directly with the user experience, because cluttered website which are difficult to navigate simply aren’t very user friendly.
Although it can be tempting to add numerous different elements to your website to make things interesting, you should think about the value of everything you add. Only include things which will truly add value to your website and audience.
- Remain Consistent
It’s also extremely important to make sure that you remain consistent throughout your website. Things like your colour scheme, font pairings, and header layout should be the same on every page of your site.
Building this consistency is a crucial part of developing a strong brand. If people recognise you and your website, they will also be more likely to return over and over again.
- Base Your Design On A Template
Unless you’re a confident developer who plans on writing your website code from scratch, I’d highly recommend starting with some sort of template.
Website building platforms like Wix and Squarespace come with great template libraries. They allow you to choose a design and customise your website based on it.
Similarly, content management systems like WordPress.org also allow you to start with design templates. In the case of WordPress, you will have access to thousands of free themes to get started with.
- Use White Space
Although white space is essentially empty space, it’s an extremely powerful design tool when used right. Basically, leaving white space in certain parts of your website will help draw people’s eyes to important element or encourage certain actions. However, it’s still important to be careful of how you use white space, otherwise your site could look empty and boring.
All things considered, web design doesn’t have to be difficult – even if you’re a complete beginner. In this article I’ve outlined my top five web design tips for complete beginners. Hopefully they help you get started, and good luck building your own website!
