I thought I would share with everyone a quick run through of a few points to consider when starting a design on an old or new website. I have constructed some useful information and websites to visit.

 

When designing a home page from scratch its important to consider “what does it take to build?”. If you are going to do the front-end build yourself then map out a simple ‘div’ structure before you start the design. This is a very valued skill and will save you precious time. if someone else is building the website, consider the practicalities of your design.

 

I find re-designing a website is a lot more tricky than designing a website from scratch as there are a lot more points to consider. Before you start the re-design, find out what people are clicking on and where the website needs to improve. Has it got a good navigational and link structure? Is the company phone number immediately visible? What products and/or services are they promoting? What is the main objective for the website? Is it to drive traffic and increase enquiries?

 

Do some research on the area and other similar businesses and find out what the common trends are to get the inspiration you need to make your design stand out from the rest.

 

Let your software work for you, there are so many cool features that take away some of the design challenges we had previously and its worth spending time learning and keeping up with new technologies. Here are some websites that will help out:

www.tutcast.com

www.good-tutorials.com

www.tutorialized.com

 

Think of company branding when designing a website and create an effective colour scheme before you start, I find making a list helps. Remember to make all links the same colour so that users will associate links with certain colours, go for a high contrasted colour to make links highly visible. The same colour rule goes for main body text, sidebar sections and headers and footers. In my opinion what makes a good designer is one that can identify the target audience and design accordingly. Here are some really nice websites that give a good example of this is:

www.worldmalls.com

www.curtainscurtainscurtains.co.uk

www.lambdafilms.com

www.speedster-it.com

http://www.interactiveworkshop.co.uk

 

Imagery is very important. People identify with images so spend time choosing the right picture, especially when it comes to stock photography. Don’t rob Google images. Not only are they copyrighted but they have been used before. Don’t be lazy, create something unique, your clients will love it!

 

Learn your strengths and weaknesses. A good friend advised me the other day that being able to identify your weaknesses means you are already taking the first step to improve them.

 

Next steps and other important ‘don’ts’

 

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When I have finished a design, I have a number of ex-colleagues that I call on before I even consider sending it to the client for feedback. Ask for constructive criticism and don’t be offended, it will help you improve on future designs.

 

Don’t use too much Flash. It might be a great way to grab the attention of your visitors but its time consuming and may lead to browser issues, page load times and will negatively affect your search engine placement. I would use Flash perhaps for rotating images with transitions or subtle detail on logos. Good examples of this are:

www.midwich.com/autumn2010

www.activstudios.com

 

Don’t let code get the better of you. If you’re struggling remember not to over-complicate the code, take a step back and find simple solutions to avoid hacks and messy code. I found some very useful material on www.htmlcodetutorial.com and, of course, W3CSchools.

 

Get too hung up on SEO when writing website text! I cringe when I read text and it clearly mentions the same selected few words over and over. Find a balance between keyword placing and keeping your material engaging and user friendly. Make use of your design talents to aggressively market your clients’ products and service but in a subtle way ;-)

 

Was this information useful? (Sorry Google!)

 

Glenn

Thanks, made a very good read and some nice sites to visit.

 

Will be useful for new designers starting out.

Thanks for posting this. Interesting read.

Good read, will be checking some of the sites.

Nice post. Hope there's more to come

Well done!

+1 to karma

Ace one, cheers