This topic is always open to individual interpretation. At Kyjo our philosophy starts with the following:
SEO:
Clean code that is optimised for search engines is a very important factor that many people do not apply. One major consideration is who you will get to do your design. Let’s face it, we all have a friend who has a friend who is a web designer or that claims that they can do a website. How much do they know? What experience do they have? Do they even know about these design principles?
MOBILE:
Ensure your design works on multiple browsers, resolutions and devices. There are two options for this.
(i) Subdomain: m.domainname.com or domainname.com/mobile
(ii) Responsive web design.
OK well that is great to know, now which do I choose? Ultimately a Responsive Design is a great safe option. You have one website for everyone to view.
INTENT: What is the purpose of the website. How do you intend the end users to interact? This is vital information as it can assist in whether or not you will require to run a forum, blog, have member accounts, mailing lists, online sales and much more!
NAVIGATION:
Ever been to a website and you do not know where to click? Well that sucks! And you do not want to be in that category. Sticking to the three click rule is a simple solution to keeping a clean and usable hierarchy. If this is not always possible due to the complexity of data or design, then common sense must prevail so the end user experience is positive and return hits return to your asset.
abcdeFG:
FG, the ABC’s of the web design layout! We all know our ABC’s but people lack knowledge when they reach FG. F for fast reading and it has been proven that people do actually read content in this manner. Left to right and then down. Obviously users scan patterns vary, though this is a safe and uncompromising way of delivering your menus and content.
G is for Grid layout. Arrange your content in rows, columns, sections and boxed. This will create a balanced look and feel and helps create a well designed page. Viewers will easily see your content and will actually bother reading what you have either spent money creating or typed up!
These five good web design principles should be applied no matter what content you have on your website.