Best Web Site Design Practices

It is incredible to think how far web design has come since the mid 90's. From years of usability testing, the best web site design practices have been revealed.

The following are the three most important factors to keep in mind when designing your web site:

Consistency: Being consistent when designing your web site is one of the most crucial factors. The navigation menu, color scheme, font sizes and styles should be kept consistent from page to page.

Simplicity: Unfortunately many sites fail to keep this in mind when designing their site. Keeping the site from looking cluttered has many benefits. It will greatly increase the speed at which users can navigate and find information throughout the site as well as increasing the chance that the user will return. Utilizing white space also helps. Using too little or too much can ruin a site design. The best web site design practice is to find a happy medium, which can be obtained through usability testing.

Imagery: The use of images creates affordances (explaining the purpose of a page through an image rather than using words) and greatly increases the sites look and feel. Increasing the speed at which a user can identify the purpose of the page is very important. Failing to use images properly on each page leaves the site with a dull, boring feeling.

There is much more to creating a web site than what has been listed above, however, these are the best web site design practices that users should follow.