A Brief Look at How Details Improve Designs
They say, ‘God is in the details’. I don’t know about God, but years of web designing experience has certainly taught me this: details can make a world of difference in how users perceive and react to a website’s design.
When web users visit a website, they are hoping to find something valuable, either in information, or the product or service it offers. Thus, a web designer’s creative effort should be focused on making a website useful to its users. Of course, web users are a mixed bunch of easily impressionable and discriminative people. Hence, there is no direct correlation between what web designers create and what impact it has on the user.
Still, good designs have better chances of winning than average, run-of-the-mill artwork. What sets attractiveness apart from average appeal are the ‘details’ that improve the overall quality of designs.
Details and beyond…
The type of details web designers should focus on is those that will improve their work beyond aesthetics. Visual tweaks can remarkably impact how visitors perceive a site’s message or theme, or how they navigate. The average visitor is blind to the nuances that enhance their experience, but if those details are removed, there will be a noticeable difference in users’ onsite behavior.
A web designer must have a good understanding of how color, shape, contrast and space affect user experience.
What are these ‘details’?
- Pixels – Pixels make a big difference in how your site looks. Because they determine your overall design quality, they have the ability to make your site look crisp and professional or blurry and amateurish.
- Shadows – Drop shadows are nothing new to web designs. Shadows give your design depth, and improve the way your site is experienced. Use of CSS3 paves way for grand design tweaks in your website. Example: text shadows, when used subtly, yet effectively, can make your fonts appear more legible. Also, shadows give flat, 2-dimensional images depth so they appear to lift off the page or embed, making images appear more attractive.
Of course, the scope of CSS3 does not end with shadows. CSS3 animation can help add motion to your site without needing JavaScript or Flash. Needless to say, cross-browser compatibility issues and loading time is drastically reduced.
- Navigation Nuance – Any user must be able to easily navigate his way through your website. Links are crucial; there are several ways you can make your link texts or link buttons stand out on your site. Color change, shadows and pop-outs are effects you can experiment with.
Note: Details can only be added to an already solid website design. In the absence of a good design, you will have no foundation to work on.
Author Bio
Arjun Dasgupta has been long associated with Quality Web Solutions, a reputed website design company. He has authored a number of articles on the different types of web design solutions.
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