What Is Web Design?

Web design refers to the appearance, layout, and design of websites. Rather than software development, web design usually refers to the user experience and front-facing aspects of a website. A Web Designer, therefore, uses a variety of web design tools to work on the appearance, layout, look, structure, and content of websites.

As more and more Web Designers adopt a mobile-first mentality, two types of web design can be used to create a website: adaptive or responsive.

With adaptive web design, two different versions of a website – at least – are employed to fit various screen sizes. Within adaptive websites, some sites adapt based on the type of device, while others work based on browser width. Adaptive web designs allow faster custom designs and quick web page load times, but drawbacks include a site that might not work properly on a smaller desktop browser window.

Responsive websites use flexible grid layouts based on the percentage each element takes up. So the benefit is that the user gets a great experience no matter how big their device screen is. The downside is that custom responsive website designs are not easy to create.

Adaptive web design uses at least two versions of a website to fit different screen sizes. There are two main categories of adaptive websites: those that adapt based on the type of device being used, and those that adapt based on browser width.

The benefits of adaptive web designs are that it’s faster to make custom designs more quickly and easily without code. They’re also compatible across different devices and browsers, and pages will load quickly.

On the other hand, you miss out on some effects that can only be used with responsive sites, and if you use the aforementioned category that goes by type of device, your site can look broken in a smaller browser window on a desktop.

Responsive websites can use flexible grid layouts that are based on the percentage each element takes up in its container. For instance, if a single element is 30 percent, it will always be 30 percent regardless of the size of the screen used by the device that is accessing the site.

As a result, you get a uniformly excellent experience no matter how big the screen is on your device. Also, there are a ton of responsive website templates out there you can use.

The drawbacks? If you’re starting at the beginning, you’ll need to test your site extensively. And if you haven’t had the chance to learn how to code, custom responsive website designs can be pretty difficult to build.

Web design is crucial to creating an attractive and functional website, and good websites are increasingly crucial for any company. Here are some of the benefits of good website design for companies:

Google’s numbers show that a user takes only 50 milliseconds to create a first impression of a website, and of course website design plays a huge part in forming that impression. An attractive, modern, fast, and well-organized website design will leave a positive impression in the minds of users.

If you’re looking to raise a website’s search engine results, web design is a good place to invest your time, money, and energy. Search engine algorithms are placing increased importance on things like content loading speeds or the time it takes for a page to become interactive (first input delay). So good web design will go a long way toward a good SEO strategy that boosts your site’s visibility on search engines.

A poorly designed website puts your company at a competitive disadvantage against other companies in your business as potential clients begin to look for answers online. A creative, well-designed website with attractive graphic aspects should be at the core of your digital strategy and help to define your online presence.

Web design is composed of all the visual and functional elements that determine how users see, read, and use a website. So what are the qualities that make great web design? Here are all the elements that you need for a successful design:

As much as Web Designers need to concern themselves with esthetics, your written content is absolutely essential to the success of your design. Not only will that go a long way toward determining your place in search results, it’s also what most users are after when they come to your site or even mobile apps. The writing should be direct, informative, and concise.

Many of us read without even considering the typography, but whether we’re conscious of it or not, your fonts are a very important part of your overall design. If you haven’t before, start paying attention to the fonts you see. Check out iconic businesses and consider why they chose the typography that they did. If you’re a freelance Web Designer, consider selecting your own font for your website development portfolio, resume, and any other materials you submit to clients.

If you want to keep a firm handle on trends in typography, Typewolf is a great resource.

With limitless options, selecting a color can be downright daunting. Would your site look better with a monochrome color design – where a single color is used as the base with varying degrees of saturation, brightness, and various hues – or a complementary design that pairs two colors on opposite sides of the color wheel? Whatever you decide, consistency is important.

In many ways, the useability, functionality, and visual appeal of your website will be determined by how you choose to arrange your content. There are no hard-and-fast rules with regard to layout, but be sure to keep your target audience in mind and make sure the layout is intuitive to use.

Incorporate graphic elements in your design to provide a huge boost to your website’s overall appearance. Eye-catching colors and shapes used together can help direct the attention of your audience’s visit to your website.

To create a visually impressive website that’s natural to navigate, spacing is key. Using whitespace appropriately is essential in creating a design that keeps text, photos, and graphics in perfect balance. Using whitespace consistently and expertly will make your site a breeze to navigate.

Well-chosen images and icons will help you convey a lot of information in very little time. Select images and icons that are in line with your messaging and branding. Pexels, Unsplash, and IconMonstr offer free images and icons you can use, or you can get a paid account with Shutterstock to meet your stock image needs.

If you spend any time on the Internet at all, you’ve likely noticed the trend toward integrating videos into web design. If used the right way, videos can deliver a message to your users that might not be possible to convey with words or pictures. But videos do catch the eye, so make sure they’re not distracting from other elements of your design.

Information architecture is all about ensuring that the information on your site is organized and presented in a logical way. A common mistake is to confuse the term “information architecture” with a website’s menus. Although menus are a part of information architecture, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Good information architecture creates a hierarchy that aligns with how users want to interact with the website. So user research and testing are key.

Users should have a very easy time navigating your website. They should be able to access your menus from any page, and they should be able to intuit where to find the pages and information they need. Interactive menus are great, but functionality is the most important feature of a menu – so don’t get so carried away that users get lost on your site. They’ll get frustrated and go somewhere else.

Visitors to your website will have different ways of using your site based on their device (scrolling, typing, swiping, and so on). These should be simple. There are a few design principles pertaining to user interactions you should keep in mind: never underline text unless you can click on it; don’t auto-play anything; people should be able to fill out forms even if they’re accessing them from a mobile device; and don’t use pop-ups.

Like videos, animation can be a real attention-getter and help your website feel interactive. One example is adding “like” buttons. Still, less is often more in this area so make sure your pages don’t feel cluttered.

These days, few people have the patience to wait for a website to load. Not only that, but Google’s algorithms punishes slow sites. Some site builders can compress your content to ensure users have a snappy experience, but there are some dazzling designs that are just too much to handle. If you’re unsure, try Google’s Page Speed Test.

Structure is a key element in search engine optimization and the user experience offered by your site. Users should smoothly navigate through your website without encountering any structural issues. If users are getting lost, you can bet “crawlers” — an automated program that scans your site to determine its functionality — are getting lost too. That leads to bad user experience and low site rankings.

No matter what device, screen, or browser your user is using, your site should look perfect. If you’re just getting started building your site, try a cross-browsing testing tool to flag any issues that might arise. If you’re designing on a website building platform, that testing is probably handled by the company’s web development team.

The key elements of web design include layout, color, content, navigation, and overall appearance. The overall look that you achieve by combining those elements is crucial. As soon as the page loads, your audience should be impressed. It takes users only 50 milliseconds to decide whether they like your website or business. That will be the crucial factor in whether they stay or leave.

That means your design should align with a handful of adjectives: simple, uncluttered, familiar, intuitive, clean, clear, responsive, and accessible. In modern design, whitespace is frequently used to give your site room to breathe, and grid-based designs will ensure your items are organized and orderly.

It is also increasingly important to think of how customers and website visitors will experience your designs. User experience design (UX design) refers to a design practice that puts your user at the center of everything you create, while user interface design (UI design) refers to the interface design elements that users interact with on your site.

As for choosing a color scheme, paying attention to your brand or industry perspectives — along with your target audience demographics — will make this a somewhat painless process. Always be looking for ways to narrow your scope from the roughly seven million discernable hues the eye can detect. Once you choose your dominant color, decide what kind of palette you want. Typography too can’t be ignored – pick one that’s fresh and readable.

Navigation is also a huge part of web design. If users can’t intuitively move around your website, they will find a different website and you’ll have SEO issues, too. Users should be able to have a great experience no matter what mobile devices they’re using, and your site should look great across all screen sizes and browsers as well.

Finally, no one will stick around your site without good content. Developing text, videos, imagery, and more that appeals to your target audience is a key element of great design.

Adaptive websites use two or more versions of a website to fit different screen sizes. You can further divide adaptive websites into two categories: those that change based on browser width, and those that change based on the type of device being used.

The upside: adaptive websites allow the quick creation of custom design, and adaptive websites are usually fast. But you do lose some of the effects that are exclusive to responsive sites.

Responsive websites are laid out using flexible grid layouts based on the percentage of the container taken up by each element. If one element is 15 percent, that element will stay 15 percent regardless of what device the user is using to view the page.

The benefit is you can ensure uniform quality across your site across all screen types. But if you’re just starting out, you’ll need to devote a lot of time to testing.