What makes a good website?
- Responsive websites will be pushed higher up on search engines. Think of it as Google rewarding for good practice.
- Content
- Accessibility
- SEO – fresh quality content that is regularly updated will get better search engine results
- Content over aesthetics – aim for a balance, but content is the key draw overall
What makes a bad website?
- long loading times (slow server hosts, large imgs, etc.)
- poor quality content, signups
- poor aesthetics, different fonts
- unclear layouts, unpredictable navs
- long user journey
- unresponsive
A little bit on the history of the web (as read in Jeremy Keith’s book Resilient Web Design)
- the Mosaic graphical browser was released in 1993 and was the first to contain images.
- The beauty of the web – it is backwards-compatible. Content from 1989 can be viewed today.
Growth of the Web
- The number of domain names is falling in recent years. There are so many domain names that they can’t be snapped up and sold on for a profit. For example, there isn’t just .com, there’s now .blue, .pizza etc.
- Nobody should be excluded from the web. However, we can see that not every continent has equal access to the web.
Who coordinates Web technologies?
We need an independent org to moderate the web and set the rules. We have Web Standards that set the rules, created by a consortium known as WWWC (World Wide Web Consortium) and founded by Tim Berners-Lee.
On Designing
- Think of all the things that need to be considered when designing something.
- Look at the laundry liquid dispenser evolution. Watch how beautiful, efficient simplicity becomes ridiculous complication and over-decoration. The problem is if one does it, other producers do it as well. It is no longer functional. A masculine looking dispenser to appeal to the ‘new man’ of the 1990s for example.
- Think about the role colours and other design features play in conveying info to the user.
Design Principles
Check out the book the Universal Principles of Design
Look at the slides on the Golden Ratio and Hierarchy.
Hick’s Law, where too many choices can take more of the user’s time.
Ockham’s Razor – the simplest design wins.
The Expectation Effect – you pick up a bag of red crisps and expect them to be ready salted. Or looking at a collection of rectangles and know that the bottom rectangle is a footer. Or knowing that upside down bottles are likely to be conditioner, as opposed to shampoo.
What is Good Design?
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Simple and inclusive is key. How can you make the design feel invisible as you take it for granted so much?
To become a better designer, you must become critical of every designed object you see and use.
