The Top Rules Of Web Design

 An Event Apart in Atlanta this year allowed a man named Jeffrey Zeldman to discuss some web design pointers to make some website improvements. The talk was entitled the 10 Commandments of Web Design. Although we can’t tell you everything, here are a few pointers which you might find interesting and applicable. 

The talk itself follows its biblical predecessor.

The first one is Thou shall entertain. Speaker says we are spending most of our time thinking about how efficient we will become as well as to improve the usability of our websites. However, according to him, we should also be thinking about being delightful and entertaining. Headlines and visuals should be in harmony. According to him, you should consider the life that’s given by images to give more meaning to the content.

Stock photos aren’t the best answer but illustrations and icons in nature come with unique personalities which are not found on stock photos. The best time to put on personality is in your error pages. Do your best to be entertaining but at the same time keep in mind of the people’s point of view whenever certain error occurs. Fun is good but not every single time and place.

You should test everything. Visitors use your website on different devices. Remember, this is a post PC era; therefore you need to test these things on different devices. You have to use real devices to make sure that your website is working just fine. In fact, this shouldn’t be new as we are used to testing our websites with different browsers. One tool that you can use to see a preview of any kind of URL on large number of devices is Remote Preview.  Don’t stop on testing your designs and templates, you should also test your assumptions.  You can do this by publishing your intent and ideas and then encourage discussion about them.

Thou shall iterate is the next one. Iteration means how your design happens. “I move stuff around on the page until it looks right,” says Milton Glaser. It’s not just for visual design; it also helps you get more insights. A List Apart has found out that before people read the articles, they comment and re-tweet them first. They have learned this this by iterating where the share and comment links are existing on a certain page.

The next one is Thou shalt ship. The enemy of great is good and great is the adversary of shipping. If you don’t ship, you will crush your soul. You have to bring your ideas and designs to the world. Consultants should raise their rates if your clients don’t ship as this would encourage clients to bring out the work you do together into the people’s hands.

Engage thy community is the next one. When Instagram changed their terms of service without explaining what they were doing and why they did it to the community, they lost a lot of support. Loyal users were very much upset about the changes they have made. Huge companies sure are caring for their customers but they don’t have this connection to their users unlike small companies.

Though shalt prioritize. You should make sure that you are going through the most important things every single time. You should make important decisions as not everything can be prioritized.  You won’t become successful if you work without making priorities. You can read articles regarding work management and how you can prioritize your work.

Love thy user as thyself. Don’t do things that are done for mobile by making assumptions on what people will or won’t do on mobile.

Remember your content and hold it holy. Make your designs coming from your content instead of making it from device breakpoints. You should make sure that the content which people come to read is free from lot of distractions and front and center. Make your people focus on content.

Ignore workflow at your peril. You should straighten out your workflow if you want to be successful. Instagram became successful because they made it easy to share photos. Other parts of their services and experiences weren’t complete but it didn’t matter that much. They hot the workflow right as well as the most critical part of their services. That made them what they are right now.

All in all you should be true to yourself as well as your website.

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