Things Great Web Design Achieves (Part 1)

There is good design and there is bad design. What sets apart good from bad is what web designers die for. In this new series on great web design, I aim to highlight some features that great web design has, so you can learn and apply these principles for yourself

Great web design achieves Efficient Communication. A great web design instantly lets the visitor know what the site is about, and is easy to navigate and use. Such a design is clean, unique and very user friendly.

So, how can you make your design like that? Here are three things you can do:

Keep Your Header Short and Simple

You want as much information (or content rather) as possible above-the-fold, for maximum visibility. This will ensure that the user gets enough information to know at a glance what the site is about. Why not decrease your header’s height? A short header ensures maximum above-the-fold exposure.

It is important that you also keep your header simple and as minimalistic as possible. This ensures that reader’s focus is on the thing that matters: the content. At most, your header could contain a tidy logo and the primary navigation. Not much to look at, eh? That’s the point.

Here are some examples of successful blogs with short headers:

Pro Blog Design: short and sweet.

Dosh Dosh : a tidy logo, and primary navigation. That’s it.

Astheria: almost no header at all. Simple logo+navigation combination that works like a charm

StylizedWeb – very short header. Very simple header.

A Clean Sidebar

For a design to laser-focus on the content, it must minimize distractions from other elements. The sidebar is the greatest source of such distractions. Limiting your sidebar to only the essentials and keeping it clean goes a long way in helping your cause.

You’ve heard this lecture before: strip the badges, remove the flash and jingles. I won’t tell you that.
Instead, here’s one possible list of the things you can safely have in your sidebar:

• A search box.
• An archives list.
• A list of categories.
• RSS subscription information.
• A short list of your best content.

Then come advertisements, other usability improvements, and so on. The point is, keeping your sidebar as minimal as possible is the best route to go. For, just like a short and simple header, this keeps reader attention off the sidebar, and onto the content. The reader should only be viewing the sidebar if they want something more. In general, the number of times people focus on your main content should always be greater than the number of times they focus on other items on the page.

For inspiration, take a look at this blog’s sidebar. Simple, clean and does the job.

The Unique Touch

Great design is unique. It is different from the rest of the pack. It has a unique touch to it that makes it stand out like a black sheep in a flock of white.

This touch could be anything: a radical (even iconoclastic) design; a sidebar-less design; a column-ful design and so on. You have to find your own special touch.

The key is to experiment, and learn from the results. Try out new stuff. Don’t be afraid to go for radical design ideas. People will mock and make fun you, as they used to mock other talented people before. Your choice may seem odd and out of place, but that’s because you’ve become used to the norms… time to break out of the mold and think out of the box. Set a trend! I dare you.

A Lesson – From a Chair

The Aeron chair is a famous office chair that is renowned for being comfortable, especially for use on hours on end. But it didn’t shoot to fame right away.

It has a novel and a very unique and radical design: it was at first considered as sacrilege by the most of the community, when it was first released in 1994. After all, there were other ‘normal’ chairs, and this was just too ugly (it is ugly).

The designers(Herman Miller) had dared to break out of their mold and do something totally different. This chair was the product of their creativity.

At first, this chair was ridiculed and no body wanted to sit in it, but Herman Miller decided to go on with it, and not pull it back. This chair went on to receive numerous design awards and it also became part of an exclusive clique: an icon. Everybody wanted one.

What Can You Learn From This?

The point is, great web design is about thinking out of the box (while still obeying usability concepts ). The amazing and unique web designs we see everyday would not have been possible if their creators had not thought of doing something different. I am bored of seeing the same thing recycled over and over again: it’s time for something new.

Herman Miller did exactly the same thing. They could have gone ahead and made a chair based on the current norms, and made money anyway. But they didn’t: they decided to do something new. And it paid off; not necessarily in the short run, but in the long run, it did.

So cut open the box you’re trapped in, and think different! Any comments?

Stay tuned for part two of this series! I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed to remain updated

Cover photo: tanakawho