It is important to know and adhere to some principles, no matter what we are doing. Any type of job can be done better if we follow some guidelines. The guidelines are there to help steer beginners away from mistakes and remind the veterans of the basics that they might forget in their many years of experience doing similar things over and over again.

Web design is one of the jobs that you could almost always do successfully by following a couple of guidelines and principles. Here are the principles of good web design.

The Purpose of the Site

Everyone likes a good site, but what if the site missed its purpose? The designer must know why they are building the site. A site can be good, but if the designer missed the purpose of the site during the process of building it, then the message that comes across might be wrong and visitors will leave without knowing what you wanted to say.

The first thing to know is why the site is being built in the first place. Is it an ecommerce site, a presentation for a single product or service? Is it just a site to give people information and then contact information? The purpose determines the entirety of the web design process.

Navigation and Filtering

A site should be easy to navigate. That seems obvious, but most miss the mark, leaving either too many links or too few. A site should be very easy to navigate and should not present users with problems, such as drop down menus disappearing as soon as the cursor leaves the area, without giving you the option of going into a sub-menu.

That being said, filtering is also important if the site has options to list multiple things. Add filters that make sense. Observe some successful stores and follow their principles. 

Hierarchy of Elements

You need to know how to organize the elements.

The most important things on the site are the largest one. The things that you want the user to see first should either be as large as possible or in a different color that stands out against the background. 

The same goes for the least important elements, as well as the ones that are of average importance. Organize them in a logical way, by size or color, or rather, both. 

Optimization 

Sites should be easy to access from all types of devices, as well as fast when it comes to loading times. Optimizing the site’s layout and content so that it doesn’t take much bandwidth is a key component of web design. A decent layout will help navigation and eventual sales of a product or service. 

These are some principles of web design that you should follow if you want a successful site.