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Simplicity? or image saturated design? This has been an argument of the web design community for some time now and one can argue his way through either point. However, I’m for the simple design because I simply believe that simplicity is essential, more so when it comes to web design.

Lets go through the essentials or rather the purpose of a website. A website exists to give to users of the internet, relevant content or products that they may require. As such, nothing else is as important than what is on a certain website. That put, heavy loaded graphics and images are not neccessary in a web design.

I am not saying that its totally wrong to do so, but its almost as bad as commiting a sin. True that web designers who are at the same time, good at digital art would want to present to the public, skills they might have in that department. Not a wrong thing to do and its understandable to want an ego boost by that. However, taking from web design tip 1 I have posted, its important to think of the end user first. Therefore, if the end user seeks to look up information regarding ‘web design tips tutorial’ for example, it would be really inconsiderate to make him wait for the graphics to load just to end up reading a small required section. At which point, he only cares about the content and gives no appreciation for the beautiful images set up. A good thing?

Not quite as it reduces user satisfaction. Which is a very essential thing to ensure they keep coming back to your site for more. An example of a site with a beautiful simplistic design would be the following : CSS Zen Garden. It makes full use of CSS to make up its layout but most importantly, its simple. It still has beautiful graphic and imagery to compliment its layout, yet still able to keep the design simple, to the point and satisfy end users.

However, why do I mention that its possible for one to argue the benefits of an image filled site despite being in favour of the latter? Well, I have been a victim of the former back then. And I appreciated those stunning visuals very much. I still do, but after spending more time on the web, I realised the need for time and sites which load quickly are kept in my good books. These sites tend to have simplicity as their objective in their web design. On the other hand, the advances in technology (namely the connectivity department) around the world has resulted in booming internet speeds for web users and these result in more people being able to appreciate those visually stunning sites. Thus, like I mentioned, the debate can go both ways, with me, and alot other webmasters preferring to stick to the importance of simplicity.

Never can I, or other webmasters fully stress the utmost importance of simplicity in web design. Why you may ask? Well there are ALOT of benefits in doing so and I will try to name a few.

* Negligible loading times -> Visitor satisfaction
* Aesthetically appealling and structured layout -> Visitor satisfaction
* Ease of search engine optimisation -> Self and search engine spiders’ satisfaction
* Ease of validation for WC3 -> Recognized site

There are countless gains and they even include filling up your wallet! You have to try it to experience that benefit for yourself. As you can see, just by keeping your site design simple and to the point, you can benefit a lot. So the next time you feel like potraying your design skills, think for a moment about the benefits and visitors you could be losing by doing so, and put aside those skills for your masterpieces and post them up at deviantart or the likes.

That said, I am no one to instruct you on what to do with your site’s design, but my advice, as are many other webmasters : Simplicity is essential and that, is one of the very hardcore advice you could ever follow. It might even change your life. Try it.

Disclaimer : Take note, that as much as simplicity is an essential web design tip and avoiding graphic heavy design is good, over simplicity is equally as bad as the latter. Know the limits.

Many business owners use SEO techniques so as to make their websites rank high in search engines. So, they make the content of their websites SEO-friendly, for many these seem to be quite a task. The reason why it is so hard to guess the trends relating to SEO techniques is because these trends change quickly and some changes in this department even go unnoticed.

As opposed to trends that have a short expiry date, there are some rules people can rely on. These are the rules that don’t change as often, or even at all. They serve as the base for making a successful business on the Internet and here will be mentioned only the two most important of them.

First of the rules that never went out of date is the question of relevance of your content. Namely, the content on your website should always have relevant keywords in order to rank better in search engines. It should also provide precise and practical information, so as to be considered relevant. Nothing excessive is good for your website and the chances are that stuffing the content with bad keywords will never helping it rank highly.

Well, the title probably says it all but neverthless I am going to emphasise on this web design tips.

THINK OF THE END USER IN MIND.

A website would not gain constant stream of visitors or even repeated ones if users find the design inaccessible. A dumb and probably even useless fact some of you might say but people still forget it. You have to agree that the visitor is the most important person when drafting out a design. If you can successfully draft out a design thats appealing yet easily accesible to the visitor, then I assure you that your client would feel the same. (with the exception of 0.0001% :p)

Easier said then done, how do you think of the end user in mind while drafting out that layout/design? There are several ways you can go about in doing so.

* Imagine you’re the end user every single second of your design phase

* Have friends test out your layout after you’re done with drafting

* Dont think whether you or the client would like the aesthetics of the design but more on whether the end user would know where to go to get what he wants.

*Place aesthetic criterias aside and make sure you have a sitemap so that everything is easily accesible.

* What’s the purpose of the site?
* Target Audience?

* Get outside opinions, critiques, especially those NOT adept at web design.

* Last but not least, would you re-visit the site (with your design) considering you’re an outsider?

I just cannot emphasise the importance of the first tip, namely, to imagine yourself in the shoes of the end user of the site you’re designing. Without doing so, its rare that one is able to churn up a design for a site that will keep visitors coming back for reasons that include aesthetic appeal as well as accesiblity.

As a web user yourself, I’m very certain none of you wants to go searching through the whole site just to find that link that says “Contact Us” or even wait minutes for images to load on a site. Therefore, thinking of the end user in mind while drafting out your design would ensure that you go to great lengths to ensure a pleasant visit for your visitors and it would show indefinitely.

Some people prefer simplicity, some just awe at graphical excellence, but the fact remains that if the end user does not enjoy his time while on your site, you’re most definitely not going to get him to visit your site again lest he’s forced to. So it doesnt matter what kind of design/layout you go for, just remember,

Your target audience/end user has to enjoy their stay while on the site.

I can assure you a 100% gurantee that you would be getting revisits on your site. And that is always good because then, word of your site would spread in time to come. Remember that tip for it is like the holy grail of essential web design tips.;)

For more web design tips on making your design work for you, click here Web Design Tips.