During the early days of website and graphic design, most of the tasks were very much confined to filling up as much space as possible. A website or graphic design with more moving images or flashing content usually had a sound reputation. Nevertheless, this is not the case in modern website design as well as in the development applications. We have reached the next level of designing where there exists the boundless options to keep up with your design tasks. Now, the focus is on the website design usability, simplicity and at the same time on imparting functionality.
More often, practicing minimalism or simple UI design alone cannot let you win the game. You also need your design to work on devices as desired, and there comes the functionality.
Website Design Functionality
While designing for the web, understanding your audience and what they want is a prime concern. How do they move from page to page, how do they interact with all the necessary content etc. are some of the prime considerations. A web and graphic designer plays a major role as they add “fluidity” to the website. The functionality part is carried out by the web developers that work on the backend.
Planning for this interaction begins with the most crucial part of the design which is called wireframing. A wireframe is a brief representation of a website’s layout that can be considered as a blueprint of the design or the skeletal framework of the website.
Wireframes are crucial because they help you set up design aesthetics as well as the navigational scheme of your site. Most of the usability design components are associated to the wireframe design as once you design them, you may only need to carry out the UI and graphic design as per an organised skeletal frame. Some of the components of functionality are:
- Wireframe Design
- Website Prototype
- Website Mock Up
Read More At: What are Wireframes, Mockups and Prototypes?
Website Design Usability
It refers to the user interaction with the website itself. In order to have a usable website design, an easy and consistent navigation is a must. Consistency will ensure that the information provided on the web page is quick and easy to retrieve. There are a number of techniques to achieve this.
- The “scannable text” should predominantly be used in the header navigation. Anything which is “scannable” is likely to be simple, meaningful. It will guide the user throughout the websitesite efficiently.
- Most of the times, a large, readable font will help you do your job. Additionally, the use of icons is a new trend that is building up. Instead of overloading your website with large size photos,you should use icons which is a better substitute. This will set up an easy visual.
- Apart from these advantages, each page will load quickly. The faster a page loads, there are more chances that user will stay on that page for longer time. Web content such as text, typography, and the graphics also need some space to breathe.
Also Read, Building Up Usability Through Essential UX Design Documents
The Bottom Line
Website’s design usability and functionality together counts to about more than 90% of the website design part. So, no matter what design approaches you follow or how aggressively you spend on the resources, unless you help users achieve what they want to accomplish, your site won’t perform well. This is also true for other designing niches viz. Mobile UX designs etc.
