1. Have a strong, clear brand message
Your web site should project the
image you want the world to see – and the great news is that through web design
you can control that image entirely. In terms of physical design this means
positioning your logo or key message in the top left hand corner – the part of
the screen our eyes are most naturally drawn to.
2. Provide a clear, concise
navigation method
A good web designer will ensure
that they use design techniques to lead the user around the screen and site.
Clearly differentiated sub-sections and even a site map can ensure a concise,
easy to follow navigation route, while good use of position, colour, contrast
and size can all help focus the eye. Stick to one main navigation menu, remain
consistent throughout the site, use sub-navigation and keep it uncluttered by
avoiding drop down menus.
3. Make it intuitively easy to use
Visitors can be fickle and if a
site is hard or slow to navigate they’ll be off. Ensure navigation buttons are
obvious and easily identifiable – towards the top of the page is good – and
have appropriate links directly from page to page so the user can quickly
switch when something catches their interest. Finally, adhere to the
functionalities people have come to expect. For example, if text is underlined
your user will naturally expect it to be a link.
4. Keep it consistent
Users like to know where they are
within a website and if the style of a page changes dramatically or somehow
feels different visitors will become disengaged and can start to feel lost.
Maintain consistency – and a professional image – by ensuring everything
matches, from heading sizes and typefaces to design, colour and style of image.
5. Keep it simple
The whole draw of using a website
is that it should be quick and easy to use. To this end simplicity is key.Succinct, useful information should
be available at the touch of a button.
Today’s surfers won’t hang around so make sure the page is scannable.
That means not being afraid to use (read: leave in) plenty of white space.
There is a theory behind this – our eyes do not naturally work in a linear
fashion. Given the chance they’ll take in more and then zoom in to an area of
interest from the bigger picture.
6. Ensure it’s easy to understand
Visitors coming to your website
typically won’t want to spend much time so ensure that every aspect is easy to
understand; from the navigation to the copy. There are design techniques that
can help make the information on a page easier to understand – think shorter
sentences, larger font, sections differentiated by contrast and colour and, as
previously mentioned, good use of white space. To this end, there are some
common rules of thumb: never use more than three typefaces, or more than three
different point sizes for a font and keep lines of text to 18 words - 50-80
characters – max!
7.
Degrade gracefully
Not everyone has the latest pc and
the fastest broadband so make sure your code is as simple as it can be without
compromising on the elements you need. HTML code needs to degrade gracefully
and not slow down or cause problems to lower spec computers. Cause an IT issue
on your visitors pc and you can be sure that customer won’t be back again... or
be recommending your site to anyone else!
8. Write it with your target
audience in mind
When writing – or commissioning -
the copy for your website, do bear in mind your target audience. Tempting as it
is to use the medium to bombard the user with all the information you can, do
keep it succinct in style and use laymen’s terms if appropriate – or include a
glossary if technical terms are unavoidable. If you are hoping to attract
visitors through search engine optimisation (SEO) you’ll need to consider the
key words people will be using in their searches. Weave these into the copy as
often as is appropriate to help propel your site up a search engines listings.
9. Consider usability
At the end of the day if your
website isn’t usable visitors will be off – as quick as a mouse. So, when
working on the web design, consider the end user’s experience of the site. It can be a good idea to make a
list of the things a user will want to use your site for and then checking that
these are easy to achieve and if necessary are readily available from the
homepage – e.g. Start shopping, Current offers, Book an appointment etc. Then
test early and throughout the process test and test again. The only way to
really check that your site is as user friendly as it can be is to test it out
on people who know nothing about your business.
10.
Make sure it’s compliant
A good website should adhere to
certain guidelines. For example, all web sites designed by Alchemy Interactive
– a London based web design agency – comply with the Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI). This ensures their sites are suitable and accessible for
people with disabilities and cover aspects of web design such as screen
flickering - line with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
- Grace Jones is a musical and cultural icon. She has a highly defined aesthetic and persona, this is something I will need to pay close attention to and respect when representing her through my website design
- She has a global fan base, but her biggest fans are most likely located in the UK and USA, where she has had the most cultural influence. The website design has to cater to a global audience - this is a massive consideration
- Her fan base is very diverse in terms of age, background, sexual preference and so on - this has to be considered. It is going to be very important to cater to her original fans from the 70's & 80's and as well as attempting to reach out to a younger demographic of listeners
- The website has to be a campaign, and not just another generic 'artist' website - the emphasis really needs to be on the fact that this album is a re-release. There are new tracks on the album that haven't been released before, and all of the tracks have been re-mastered - these are big selling points and the 'new' tracks are definitely USP's.
- Grace is not a desperate artist, she is cool and has earned her celebrity through being herself, so the website must try and reflect this. It must be overly complicated to use or have a messy aesthetic. I see it being quite minimal and really focused on the artists image and the sound of the highly praised album
Lean Persona's - This is a technique used to develop and refine user experience, particularly for website design. It involves you inventing a fictional persona and filling out information for them concerning their demographics, needs and wants and behaviours. It is a great way to make a design appealing and specific to a very specialised target market or group of 'users'. Below is a lean persona's table that I created for this brief, looking specifically at someone who would fall into the category of the 'early, original fans' of Grace Jones
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