Web design is a complex craft that takes time to perfect. It’s also a field changing at lightning speed as technology advances, making it a massive challenge to keep up.

Although many business owners are aware of the importance of website design, it’s a subject that only designers understand. If you want a professional website design, you must first understand the fundamentals to express what you desire.

Even if you’re hiring a good website designer for you, you still need some background information to distinguish a talented one from a mediocre one and explain what you need them to do.

We understand how difficult it is for non-designers to grasp the fundamentals of web design; therefore, we’ve put up this informative article to get you started. Whether you’re employing a designer or creating your website, make sure to include these web design tips:

1. Clear out the clutter

First, let’s talk about one of the most common mistakes in web design: a cluttered screen. Most individuals develop a list of all they want on their website without realizing it, and they just paste everything on there—and on the same page.

Essentially, each component you add to your website design dilutes the others. As a result, a cluttered interface will confuse your user and cause them to lose sight of the overall goal.

In contrast, limiting yourself to just the required components is more effective since they do not compete for attention.

Successful websites feature other information, of course, but present it later, so their screens are never too crowded. It’s the visual equivalent of pacing.

A web design must be streamlined to be successful. There must be a clear route or routes for the user to follow. The goal of decluttering is to make more room for crucial information by trimming nonessential elements.

There are numerous methods to do this (some of which are described below), but the first step is always to create space for key details by eliminating low-priority ones.

Do:

• Examine your designs for the most important features. Remove anything that doesn’t contribute to or improve the experience as a whole. If an element can be displayed on another screen, move it there instead.
• Pull-out menus (drop-downs, foldouts, and so on) are a good technique to reduce clutter, but don’t simply sweep your issues “under the rug.” If at all feasible, keep these secret menus below seven items.

Don’t:

• New visitors probably won’t use sidebars. If all of the alternatives don’t fit into your main navigation menu, you’ll need to simplify it anyhow.
• Sliders are a particularly bad use of motion because they provide viewers with too many options. They also diminish any control you may have over what your audience sees. It’s better to optimize images and only show your best all the time, rather than displaying everything at once.

2. Use ample white space

How will you fill the empty room you’ve created after eliminating the clutter? Filling it with nothing might be a good idea.

In web design, negative space (a.k.a. white space) is the technical name for spaces in an image that don’t attract attention in the visual arts.

Typically, they’re barren or unoccupied, such as a cloudless sky or a neutral background. While negative space might be rather dull on its own, when employed artistically, it may complement and enhance the primary subject, improve legibility, and make the message easier to “take in.”

For example, the tagline and calls to action (CTA) take the main focus, not because they’re flashy or tacky, but because of all the negative space around them.

The landing page should clarify what the firm does and where visitors may go next on the site in a minimalistic way—a clever composition with plenty of tactical negative space.

Do:

• Negative space should be used to surround your most essential components. The more negative space around an item, the more attention it receives.
• Add interesting secondary visuals to break up the monotony. When there’s a lot of negative space, additional aesthetic features such as color schemes and typography can help compensate for the lack of visual stimulation.

Don’t:

• Focus on the wrong element. Negative space should be used to surround only top-priority elements. For example, if the goal is conversion, surround emails or sales call to action buttons with negative space—not the logo or sales pitch.
• Use busy backgrounds. By definition, a background is intended to go mostly unnoticed. If your background layout has little negative space, it will draw attention away from your primary components.

3. Guide your user’s eyes with visual hierarchy

What do you think of “visual hierarchy” when it comes to using technical jargon such as “negative space”? It refers to manipulating what your user sees first, second, or last by employing various visual elements, such as size or location.

A good example of utilizing visual hierarchy to prioritize certain elements over others is a large, bold title at the top of the page and little legal information at the footer.

It’s not just what you put on your website but how you do it that counts. Take call to action buttons, for example; it’s not enough that they’re simply there. Skilled designers place them intentionally and give them bold colors to stand out and suggestive text to encourage more clicks. Just a few clicks from new visitors can go a long way in the design process.

Elements like size, placement, color, and negative space can all increase responsive design—or decrease it.

You can prioritize the following elements: the title, the images of the product, and the call to action. Provide visual cues to help users understand where they should look and what’s most important. Everything else, such as the navigation menu, the logos, the explanatory text—all can be secondary.

Do:

• Users generally don’t read every single word on a page. They don’t even see everything displayed on a page. Make your top priorities difficult to ignore by giving them well-defined visual elements.
• Visual hierarchy can be tough, and sometimes trial-and-error is the way to go. Make a few different versions (“mockups”) and show them to a few people to get their opinions on which is most engaging.

Don’t:

• Use competing elements. The goal of visual hierarchy is to create a sense of order. Stagger how much focus you give each one of your important components so that your website visitors easily follow a clear path.
• Go overboard. If your page elements are too big or there is a lot of color contrast, it may have the opposite impact. Use only as many attention-grabbing strategies as you need—and no more.

4. Choose your colors tactically

Now that you’re more familiar with the principles of good composition let’s discuss the details. We’ll start with color, which is an extremely important tool for any web designer.

For one thing, each color has its own set of emotional significance. For example, if your company’s personality is lively and energetic, a dynamic red would be preferable to a calm blue.

Aside from picking the greatest colors to represent your company, you must also use them effectively, such as contrasting hues to make your website visually prominent.

Many websites use the same hue to highlight keywords and buttons and incorporate them into the background pictures.

Do:

• Establish a color hierarchy. Use a single color for your main elements (primary), highlights (secondary), and other less-important elements (background).
• Stick with consistent themes. Once you’ve chosen a color palette, use it consistently. Maintain the same primary, secondary, and background colors across your entire website.

Don’t:

• Choose your personal favorite color schemes. Colors have been shown to have an impact on marketing. Learn about color theory and don’t squander a branding opportunity because of it.
• Choosing colors logically isn’t enough; they must also work together. Purple and red may both represent your company well, but if they clash and produce an unappealing end product, the effect is ruined.

5. Don’t cut back on photography

If you do decide to use real-life photography in your website design, be sure it’s done well. The ability to create effective, meaningful images may help you achieve your commercial objectives, but low-quality photographs prevent you from doing so.

The same rules for excellent photography, in general, apply to using photographs in web design.

A stunning photo displayed in an art gallery may be equally beautiful on a website, but the mood, style, and subject matter must be compatible.

Do:

• Use real people. Photos of people tend to engage users more—especially pictures of your actual staff or actual customers.
• Set the right ambiance. Because there are so many different types of photography, choose ones that best represent your website’s aim. If you want a cheerful website, use candid pictures of people smiling.

Don’t:

• Use obvious stock photos. The key point is that the user should not be aware of it. Stock photos may be helpful, but only if the user isn’t aware of stock.
• Use low resolutions. This is the age of high-definition imaging; therefore, low-resolution images make a business look old or unsuccessful.

6. Optimize typography to build your brand

While the words you or your copywriter select are extremely important, you may also improve their impact by using the right tone.

Typography consists of all the visuals of text, particularly fonts, other elements like size, text color, font style (italics, bold, etc.), and the spacing between letters, words, and lines. All of these impact your brand’s visual hierarchy and how it is seen. Typography is another one of those art forms that, like color and photography, has a wide range of styles. Choose the style that best matches your business.

Do:

• Use web fonts. Don’t get carried away with the number of fonts available. Even for a simple sign, stick to verified “web-safe” fonts that can be viewed on most devices and computer monitors. 
• Choose a font with personality. Most people choose from the standard web fonts, such as Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet, and so forth. While these are clearly legible and work for most websites, they aren’t always unique.
• Use “hooked” endings on lettering and select sans-serif typefaces.

Don’t:

• It’s also a good idea to avoid using too many different typographies. Excessively flashy, attention-getting typography may be appropriate for headlines or single words, but they are highly distracting when utilized excessively.
• Use the same typography for everything. It’s most pleasing when it’s properly balanced. You may create different sets for headers, subheaders, and body text—and use them throughout the site.

7. Streamline navigation in your web design

Every individual has their own approach to navigating a website. However, navigation in a good web design is intuitive because it caters to the needs of its target audience—the lesser users have to think about it, the better.

But it isn’t simple. It begins with the site’s overall structure: what gets its own page, what is relegated to a subpage, what menu items it consists of, and so on. Before the web design takes off, each of these questions must be addressed. Visitors expect you to have a design for navigation that’s easy to use.

Do:

• Find a sweet spot for the number of alternatives. You want to provide users with as many choices as possible while not overwhelming them, so organize the page categories in a way that accomplishes both objectives.
• Create a navigation system based on real user data. Some consumers look for shoes on the internet by searching under “clothing” or “accessories.” User groups have distinct tastes; design your navigation structure around how your users want it to be, based on real-world data. If you’re unfamiliar with the product, you may conduct some user tests.

Don’t:

• Experiment with unusual layouts. It’s best not to experiment with when it comes to such an important topic as navigation. Stick to the web designs that users are familiar with: top header navigation menu, search bar with magnifying glass icon, logo linked to the homepage, etc.

8. Prioritize mobile users

Older people are more likely to believe that web design is limited to desktop computers, but the fact is that most of their surfing takes place on mobile devices nowadays. That is why you should make sure your mobile site is up to date. The Google algorithm considers mobile responsive design when calculating their search engines’ ranking.

“Mobile responsive design” refers to how well your website is displayed on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This makes a huge difference if your website is restricted on mobile devices or images displayed incorrectly; your visitors won’t have a pleasant time using it.

Besides scroll, mobile devices come with a new set of design standards, such as “swipes,” so don’t expect your desktop version to translate automatically.

From the beginning, you should think about your mobile version. However, that doesn’t imply you can ignore your desktop version. On the contrary, your website should work with all sorts of devices to appear good, regardless of the device that they’re using to view it.

Do:

• Design the mobile version first. When creating the mobile version, you have to stick to only the most essential details due to the restricted screen space. Balance it out by starting with the mobile version and then adding features to the desktop version rather than making the desktop version first and then removing stuff.
• Prioritize devices based on user behavior. The phrase “mobile” can be used to refer to a variety of devices, but some phone and tablet models have distinct screen sizes and technical requirements. Take a look at the types of devices your visitors use most and place them higher in the design.

Don’t:

• Use m.dot sites. Before designers knew mobile would surpass desktop, they used “m.” in the URL of their mobile sites, which was an early approach to producing mobile-friendly layouts. Today, they’re slower to load and detrimental to search rankings—the ideal solution is to build a site that works on all relevant devices.

9. Make text easy to read

When we say a professional website should be easy to read, we’re talking about three different meanings:

• The message is clear. The copy text is appropriate for your company’s objectives and targets your audience.
• Displayed well. The copy text is displayed nicely, with adequate space and digestible chunks that don’t overwhelm the reader.
• It is legible. It is a pleasant, easy-to-read typeface with clear letters. There’s no strain or double-backing because of the font and size.

Legibility is also determined by typography, but it must complement other factors such as composition and structure and how the text interacts with other components. Not to mention the quality of the actual writing.

Having a great website design won’t do you much good if no one can read your text.

Do:

• Pay attention to color pairings. The contrast between the background and the text significantly impacts legibility, especially for individuals with reading or vision difficulties. Focus on contrasting pairs (light and dark tones), but if everything else fails, you may always go back to the classic black-and-white.
• Test designs on different readers. What’s readable to you may not be readable to all your visitors. To cover all your bases, test your designs with various readers.

Don’t:

• Use cursive or dramatic fonts for body text. Exceptional fonts are appropriate for making headers and titles more apparent, however, when the user must read line-after-line of text, stick with a basic font that’s easy on the eyes.
• Using text that is extremely long is more difficult to scan. Even outside of web design, large blocks of text intimidate readers. It’s preferable to separate them using proactive page formatting or even forced paragraph breaks.

10. Communicate what you want to your designer

Let’s say you have a grand idea for a feature of your website, or you’ve gone through various articles about website design tips. But if you don’t explain it well, your designer might not understand what you actually want.

The better you’re able to explain it to a web designer, the more likely the final version will turn out as you envision.

Web design demands technical expertise because it’s a collaborative effort; it also requires communication abilities. In the end, a website is a two-way street.

The easiest approach to secure a web design you like is to communicate your objectives in detail. After all, web designers aren’t mind readers.

Do:

• Prepare ahead of time what you want. Make a list of all the things you need to remember and put it on paper or create a wireframe. Both assist in keeping track of everything,
• Have an open mind. Keep an open mind to your designer’s ideas, even if they differ from what you expected. Your designer’s job is to make your website as great as possible. Chances are, they know something you may not.

Don’t:

• Be generic or vague. Vague and general terms like “colorful” or “interactive” accomplish little. What colors should I use? How do users interact? Provide as many details as possible—or leave it to the designer.
• Let your personal feelings get in the way. If you think something looks good, don’t let your ideas of what’s appealing or professional influence how you describe it to the web designer. Otherwise, there’s a chance your website will be created according to subjective taste.

It’s one thing to read through these 10 website design tips, but it’s something entirely different to put them into practice on your site. Color theory, typography, composition, and mobile responsiveness are all quite complex, so don’t worry if you aren’t comprehending everything.

Professional designers can truly appreciate the distinctions of these areas. Therefore, hiring someone who understands these web design concepts is typically the most secure path to excellent design.

Everything you want on your website must be communicated and planned out carefully. It’s all connected, and a great website design considers all elements.

Use these 10 web design tips to establish a great foundation for your next website design.