A Decade of Web Design Failure: What We Can Learn

Within the past decade of website design and website development, there has been a lot that has been accomplished — and there have been things that we have been able to learn, both good and bad from both the successes of the good websites and the failures of the forgettable ones. Here are just a few things to take away in case you are hoping to up your website design game and create a website that is both attractive and efficient.

Believe in Yourself and Your Website

The first thing you can do to help yourself on your path to great website design is to believe in yourself and the content that you create. Being good at something like designing a website is very similar to being good at anything else. It takes a lot of practice and determination, but on top of that, you have to have a confidence and belief in yourself that you are great and that you can do great things if you simply put your mind to it. By simply having confidence in yourself, you give yourself the room to try new things and know that it is ok to fail, because those failures are going to lead you to your biggest successes.

The Four-Second Rule

The four-second rule is based off of the idea that you and anyone that visits your site should be able to take one look at your site and be able to decipher what it is about and what it is for in about 4 seconds or less. If your users cannot do this, then your website is too complicated and in need of some simplification.

Keep Constant Contrast

The definition of contrast in website design is the difference in visual properties that make an object distinguishable from other objects in the background. As this relates to your website, you simply need to make sure that the most important parts of your website are distinguished from the rest of it. By doing this, you also make your website much easier to navigate.

Navigation Is Key

The final tip is to make sure that the visitors to your website do not get lost in trying to navigate to different pages around your site. Just because you designed it and can figure it out, obviously does not mean that everyone can. The best thing that you can do is have other people such as friends or other website design professionals come and test your website and give you feedback on where you can improve the most and what aspects you succeed at.