How to Succeed with Simple Web Design

Websites are often virtual storage units for hoarding unnecessary items considering the number of gadgets, widgets and add-ons that are available today.

Sometimes it’s as if a webmaster is against the idea of simple web design as they clutter sites with items that are not pertinent to the websites’ message: world clocks, visitor count, embedded video and audio, excessive photo galleries, etc.

The fact is: You can fill a room with only so much furniture and decor. Let’s examine some elements of simple web design.

First Impressions

As documented by Google in 2012, it takes a fraction of a second—1/50 to 1/20—for one to determine whether or not a website is aesthetically pleasing, and sites that include too many complexities (different colours, fonts, too much flash, streaming audio, etc.) are often the lower ranking sites compared to simpler designs.

Think of a beautiful woman or handsome man. How are we to see them as aesthetically pleasing if they’re covered in thick makeup, shiny jewellery and fake suntans? The point is: Less is more.

Familiarity

There are mainly three types of websites: eCommerce, blog and social media. With such sites, we have expectations. With an eCommerce site, we expect a shopping cart icon on the upper right hand corner. With a blog, our cursor naturally moves to the right sidebar to navigate. With social media, we expect a straight bar of comments posted by others.

When sites follow what’s called a “prototypical” design, or rather, design that is the norm for the three categories mentioned above, odds for success with customers are more favourable.

Negative Space

Simple web design avoids complex colour schemes. For example: a green header, burgundy background, blue navigation bars and an orange footer. Take all of those colours and stack subjects such as models, products or icons on top of it. This isn’t going to work.

Colour should accent a larger background of a steady colour. Perhaps a white background with red borders and black text will suffice. The bottom line is: let the colours come from the subjects instead of the background. Models will pop out more, products will be better showcased and icons or avatars will be better defined.

General Guidelines

To get a good grasp on simple web design, remember: observe the layout of successful sites you are familiar with, follow the basic placement of elements per “prototypical” design, restrict visual content to only what visitors “need” to see, one large image instead of several thumbnails, one column is better that three or four, and, lastly, remember that negative space is your friend.

Simple web design is where it’s at despite all of the little toys we can forever add on to our websites.

Again, remember that you can fill a room with only so much furniture and decor before it becomes too difficult to walk through.

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About the Author

I started Metal Potato with the goal of building cutting-edge websites that make our clients stand out. Follow my daily design links on Twitter, or you can drop me an email today.