Have you ever visited a website and just wanted to forget that you ever opened that link? The colors and fonts assaulted your senses and you want to run screaming from your screen? Or maybe you are on a particular site and you can’t find what you are looking for because the content is buried somewhere in a bunch of self-aggrandizing graphics and font overuse.

Good design of a website goes much deeper than just delivering content that looks good. You need organization, a layout that directs visitors to what they are looking for, and is visually engaging.

There are actually four areas of website design and development that can impact the visitor experience. Take a quick look at each of these considerations.

Content

Way back when, in the early days of the Web, you would often see pages just filled to the brim with words, words, and more words — Just sooooo so many words that visitors would get bogged down and leave because they couldn’t find the information they wanted.

Today, content must be edited for readability, and well as being organized so that information is presented without being overwhelming to visitors.

You need to be cognizant about hiding content, present too much content or making it impossible for visitors to find what they need. The voice and tone of your content is important as well. If you are not presenting the right information in the right place, you will drive away visitors.

Content must be organized and easy to read. And perhaps some of the most important factors are that the information must be concise and well written — there’s nothing more off-putting than poor grammar and bad spelling.

Space

Web page organization, design, and look are paramount to creating the feel a visitor will have when visiting your site. Sites that have too many graphic elements will fail to keep a visitor. White space is actually visually stimulating and provides a “resting” space for the eye. Too many graphics, too much content and those annoying flashing icons will cause chaos.

Color

The color scheme on most websites is driven by the company’s brand and/or logo. However, these colors can affect how a visitor feels when visiting the site.

Most business identities tend to go toward neutral colors, along with other main colors. And these neutral colors should be treated as an asset, along with that important white space.

And perhaps most importantly, it is important that the colors play well together — you don’t want to use yellow type on a blue background for instance.

And colors play a role in evoking feelings: cooler colors, such as blues and greens can give an inviting, relaxed, professional feel. Alternately, these colors can also give a cold, unfriendly feeling, depending on how they are used. Warmer colors are considered soothing and warm, but can also give a sense of negativity, anger or stress.

How color is used also depends on things such as tint, hue and shade to evoke feeling.

Typography

Because of advances in technology, websites can now take advantage of thousands of typefaces — not just the previously 15 web-safe fonts. However, knowing how to choose the correct typeface is a heavy responsibility. In other word, just because you have thousands of typefaces from which to choose, doesn’t mean you should try to use as many as you can.

Typefaces have been designed for certain uses, specific situations to present a particular look and feel. The study of typology can be an in-depth endeavor, and having to consider whether to use serif, sans serif, what the proper kerning should be, and even the leading.

These typography terms can make your head spin, but in the hands of a good designer can bring your website to life and present your company in the very best light.

In fact, a good designer knows how to bring all four of these important components together to make your website reflect your business’s best image. The design elements of a website is just as important as the working back end. That’s why at Amari Consulting our team of designers and software developers work together to create a well designed and effective website.