The most important thing in website design.

[I just want to say I am not a professional, I just design websites in my free time and it is really my passion ]

OK I am on DP for one year now and one thing I can definetaly say it is worth it being here. Not only for learning, for fun... Now [in the past weeks, months] I can see loads of newbies on the field. This is a good thing...

I have learnt one big thing about web design and development in this 1 year: Every site has to have a characteristic! It can be rounded corners with every object or a dashed line that goes through the whole site or anything else.

This thing ironically struck to my mind when I was designing a site. I thrown together the functions with some random display. The layout was OK but there was no integrated design.

I looked at few sites and here are my thoughts:

• LinkedIn: Very simple with nearly everything just white and gray, but it has a strong effect.
• Dribbble: Everything is out of chrome (the material not the browser )
• Google: Everything is straight, no curves, no bends but everything passes together

So please!! Try to make something that is valuable and has a character. Just a tip...

 

The most important thing about building any web site is that it accomplished what you want it to accomplish. You are conveying information to your site visitors. Lots of times people's ego or vanity gets in the way - this results in big overblown design features due to the person trying to impress people with the site design. in the world of professional web design this is huge - most web design firms are in it to make the most $$ from every client so they push you to show off and let them design something really impressive and thus expensive.

The best web site is pleasant on the eyes and conveys a lot of information in a way that is logical and easy to navigate. The best advice is to have lots of info on your web site for people to see, read etc. The site design comes 2nd to that.

Keep it simple and make it interesting. People will like it.

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Maintain website usability and readability with attractive website look is the most important in website designing, sometimes web designer try to create most eye-catching website design but they forgot to create use friendly website. Website designer should have to balance all these stuff while website designing.

 

It needs to flow and look the part. Any flair needs to only be subtle so as to not make your visitors leave.
Good luck, guys!

 

The most important part of any website is CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.

If your content sucks, all the lipstick in the world will not make it pretty.

 

I think AVC is right on the money - pun intended. Does the site meet its goals? If not then you missed the mark.

 

Have to agree with AVC. INMHO the most important thing is to keep design and content separate. This is the beauty of php includes, for example, because it means only updating / editing a single page (design) while the content is unaffected. It makes site maintenance relatively easy. Easy on the eyes, easy to navigate, with good content and no distractions like horizontal scrolling, too many flashy things / scrolling banners, and avoid those irritating pop ups. Oh, and personally I thnk flash is a no-no - if I hit a flash site, I usually exit straight away. Might look good but they are irritating.

 

Flash is a memory hog and is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Because of that, I UNINSTALLED Flash from my computer years ago.

So, if there is Flash content on a webpage, I will never see it. Needless to say, unless there is some other COMPELLING reason for me to remain on a page containing Flash content, I just move on to another website.

 

Yup, have to agree .. Flash is a real memory crunching hog and I move on too.

 

interesting point, and yes i hear what your saying integrated design is very important

 

Design is only as good as the intended purpose, as AVC said. If the design of the site is not intuitive, easy to navigate (to where you want your visitor to go/do), AND look like the potential customer expects, then it has failed.

Content and design should go hand-in-hand. Good content MAY prevail over crappy design, but it may more often be dismissed, because people expect a certain level of professionalism from the websites they choose to pay attention to these days, IMO.

 

It all depends upon the intent of teh site. For instance if you are designing a site for a music group it has very different requirements from a retail site.

SEO strategy should dictate the design from the start, if the site is going to be competing in a very competitive environment (eg retail site selling clothing) then great content and SEO are of paramount importance.

If on the other hand you are designing a site where high rankings on competitive phrases are not of importance then you have much more freedom to do something flashy with the design.

 

seohound, I respectfully disagree.

If you have a good designer who knows what he/she's doing, the design and SEO should go hand-in-hand. Many things that can be done with graphics can be done with CSS, and many times even better than, with styling of h1, h2, h3 and etc tags, strong and em, and just general color and placement.

Not to mention that optimized loading (loading the body content first before extraneous ads, for example) can work even better with CSS than with design as it was done 10+years ago.

 

Hi MsNN

Of course you are 100% correct in that there is no reason that SEO and the design cannot go hand in hand. However in my experience many designers are commissioned to only design the site while the SEO is outsourced seperately. This gives the designer little motivation to think about the SEO at the same time as completing the design. The site design and SEO should be looked at as one job rather than commisioned apart.

I think the only area that I disagree with yourself is that in certain highly competitive areas SEO should lead the design rather than of being equal importance

 

*shrugs* I can go with that.

It seems to me that the issue is that those who are hiring rarely know what to look for... if they could say to the designer, "I need the design to work with my SEO," or even better, if they choose the designer that asks, "How have you planned for SEO?", then they have a better chance at online success.

*smiles*

 

Make your user friendly, site simple, well designed, simple architecture, 2-3 deep layer. Flash is not seo friendly and it makes your site slow.

 

for a seo friendly, site should be in HTML with the proper meta tag, keywords and title

 

and also lots of keywords in whole site

 

You should never listen to anyone who thinks design has anything to do with SEO.

 

I think the most important is your making a bunch of dollars about your web design thats all. hahah lols