interface

How Creativity Can Be A Problem to Your Website

Posted on by Mario

creative design

Everyone wants to be creative in order to deliver the best works in their work. I used to think that being fully creative is the most important part in every design projects. While that may be partly true, it can be a problem sometimes, especially if you are dealing with web design. If you own a business, you know that in order for your business to be more recognised, you have to make your own website so that you can be more interactive with your customers or potential customers, and they can also feel familiar with your brand. A website also helps in building trust with your audience, because aside from always being informed and updated about what you’re up to, they can also trust that you are keeping it real and authentic. However, while having a website, you might want to be very creative in expressing yourself on your website, which can lead to a very beautifully designed website. That being said, will that website work well in the long run?

Well, as a person who wants to keep learning and learning more about design and creativity, I have come to a conclusion: it is not all about creativity. The more you design for people, the more you see that creativity is better if used for the people you design for, not for your own satisfaction. This means, you use your creativity to make the website easier to use and not only good in the eyes. Most of us start as visual designers, and then we grow and learn more about user interface, conversion, user experience, accessibility, or usability. That’s when you realise that it is not only about being creative.

While being creative is good for your website, using too much creativity without logically thinking will soon be a problem to your website. Why? Well, ever seen a website with cool introductions and creative animations before, but then when you stay on that website, you realise that the longer you stay there, the longer it takes to load and suddenly your PC starts to crash. Yes, that’s how creativity can be a problem to your website. The truth is that too-complicated layouts, too-creative solutions and reinventing wheels won’t make your users’ life easier. Therefore, a good balance between a creative, artistic, and original design while still making it intuitive, without losing usability yet still providing good results for the business is the right choice to be creative without having a problem. The question is; how? Well, this article will answer it for you! Keep reading to find out!

According to Google’s research, users prefer websites that look both simple (low complexity) and familiar (high prototypicality). While that doesn’t mean that your website should look boring, your website should be easy to access, especially in the navigation part where it can lead your visitors to every page easily as if they were being familiar with the website. Aside from that, your website should also look unique at the same time. One thing for sure, as unique as your website is, never ever make your visitors think hard just to access your website. There are many early established web conventions and standards like the placement of your logo, navigation, search bar or login link. There are even conventions on an icon’s meaning, website element names, (e.g. Home, Sitemap, or Contact), button styles, layout and visual hierarchy. All of these standards will help your users navigate and find what they need much faster and easier. Just stick to some of the most popular conventions but use your creativity elsewhere.

So, where should you put your creativity? You can use your imagination on visual design. You can always be creative when it comes to the visual design. That being said, that doesn’t mean you can put animation designs on every web pages. In the visual part of design, you can try to make over some colour with different colour schemes or interesting font combinations. You can also play with spacing, visual balance and hierarchy. Design original illustrations or clever hover and scrolling effects. Try to find creative ways to simplify your design. Minimalism is not about hiding features or content, but about doing less, which is better. Yes, actually simplifying design can very often need more creativity than making it complex.

That’s how you can balance between being creative while placing yourself in your visitors’ shoes – be them, and feel your own website. Put yourself in their perspective and that’s how you understand the unity between creativity and usability.

Creating a More Accessible Website

Posted on by Mario

In general, website accessibility is known as an attempt of removing online barriers faced by people with disabilities. The goal is to provide everyone with equal access to online information and functionality.

This website accessibility issue has been broken down by the W3C or World Wide Web Compliance organization into 12 points and the accessibility requirements will continue to evolve. But, don’t worry, as you can improve the accessibility of your website by following the best practices below for web design, development, and content management to improve the user experience on your website for all visitors. If you are a web developer, this article will suit you best, so keep on reading and learn how to create an accessible web today!

How to Design for all Users?

Below are ways that you can apply to make your user interface design and visual design more accessible. These tips can be applied both to a new website and to an existing site.

Applying the Right Color Contrast Ratio

Color contrast helps people see the text clearly as it gives sufficient contrast between the text color and background color. Therefore, it is important for you to provide a good color contrast ratio. As a best practice, your foreground text should have sufficient contrast from the background colors. A contrast ratio of 5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text are good standards to follow and also meet the minimum requirements for WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

Avoiding Sliders and Animations

Some studies reveal that user experiences and visitor engagement are not good for conversions and can cause low engagement. Therefore, it is better to avoid using any rotating slides and carousels on web pages because some website visitors may require more time to view and read a slide, besides, rotating and moving content will only create frustration for visitors.

Utilizing WordPress for Accessibility

Since February 2016, WordPress has released WordPress Accessibility Coding Standards which provide a compliant based on which custom themes can be built, most major themes and frameworks on WordPress, like Genesis or Avada.  Furthermore, all new or updated code released in WordPress must conform to the WCAG 2.0 guidelines.

Form Labels and Errors

Instead of using placeholder text, make sure all forms on your website have proper form labels. For example, the form pictured below has placeholder text for username and password, but once the form field is clicked, the user can no longer see what information should be entered into the field. This kind of form will create a hindrance for users that need extra time filling out a form.

Web Page Navigation

Another thing that you should bring to your attention is the accessibility in creating a website that can be navigated using a keyboard. This is because some website users with mobility impairments can’t use a mouse to navigate your website and rely on a keyword or keyboard-like device.

In fact, the better your page’s structure and semantics are, the more navigable and understandable it is for all users. Therefore, make sure that your WordPress developer is following the best practices in page structures by using proper heading hierarchies, enabling skip links, and using accurate semantic HTML.

How to Manage Content for All Users?

Don’t forget about content, because having an accessible website requires an adjustment in how you handle all website content going forward, so here are some of the ways that you can do.

Adding Alternative Text to Images

To describe the appearance of an image on a web page, alt text is used within an HTML. Visually impaired users rely on alt text to understand an image on a website. With WordPress interface, website administrators can easily update website content and add alternative text to images. In this case, alternative text is helpful for SEO, as search engines look for alternative text to identify and properly index an image.

Video & Audio Captions

Just like having captions on images, you should also put captions and transcripts on any video or audio. By giving captions, to multi-media, the visitors can easily enjoy and access the knowledge offered in the media. Furthermore, with captions, visitors can conveniently watch videos with the sound off. Today, it is easy to find numerous free tools available for adding and editing captions to your video and audio files.

So, whether you are creating a new website or upgrading it, it is important to protect all that work by ensuring the website is secure from hackers and security breaches. In fact, you may need to have a daily backup, not only for security, but also for breaking a component related to accessibility.

In summary, major online businesses are realizing on the importance of accessibility that is able to encourage closed captions on videos for users who are deaf and hard of hearing, so are you ready to start creating a more accessible website today? Remember that it is important to create a website that can be accessed by anyone, anytime, and anywhere.

How to Create a Big Impact with Minimalism Design

Posted on by Mario

web design

Today, minimalism has become popular among web designers as it is known as one of powerful techniques in modern web design, especially when many designs become more complex.  Besides, many studies have revealed that a clean design may result in lower bounce rate since it produces more benefits to websites, such as faster-loading times and better compatibility between screen sizes. One of the most well-known sites that utilize minimalist web design is Google search.

Visual Characteristics

You can assume that a page is a minimalist when they leave these significant details:

  • Flat Texture

Minimalist interfaces often have flat textures, icons and graphic elements. Flat interfaces don’t make use of any of the obvious highlights, shadows, gradients or other textures that would make UI elements look glossy or 3D.

  • Vivid Photography and Illustration

Image is one of the most important elements in minimalist design. Through images, your user can experience emotional connection and set an atmosphere. However, not all photos are considered good for minimalism design. In fact, many photos negate the benefits of the surrounding minimalist interface and ruin the integrity of the layout. Therefore, you need to learn how to select or capture a photo that follows the principles of minimalism.

  • Limited Color Scheme

Color also plays a very important role in minimalism design; it is good to set both informative and emotional connections between the product and the user. Besides, a color can add a visual interest or a direct attention without needing any additional design elements or actual graphics. If the designers understand how to aim for minimalism, they will tend to squeeze the maximum from just a few selected colors, and it’s not that rare to use just a single color.

  • Dramatic Typography

Another important element that has a big impact to your design is typography, if you wish to have an immediate focus to the words and contents, while helping to craft a much larger intriguing visual.

  • Contrast

Not many elements you can use in minimalism design, that’s why applying high-contrast copy or graphic elements can be a good choice. With high contrast, you can direct the user’s attention to the important elements and make the text more readable.

Best Practices

Minimalism focuses on clarity and functionality; therefore, for some designers, minimalism design is truly a challenge since with fewer elements, you have to be able to explain more. If you are wondering  how to put minimalism design into practice, you can learn from the following points.

  • Have a single focal point per screen

In a minimalist design, content is king and the visual layout salutes the king. The aim is to put away distractions from the message and keep focusing on what’s important. This is why a strong focal area is important as minimalism involves stripping away elements that are unnecessary.

  • Set great expectations with the top area of the screen

To encourage users to explore the website, make sure that you provide contents that keep them interested. You can place high-level contents with ample negative space at the top of the screen, and then increase the content density as the scroll deepens.

  • Make Crisp Copy

Since you are working to create a minimalism design; therefore, you have to omit needless words in your copy to include only the bare minimum needed words. This technique will help you explain your message adequately.

  • Simplify but don’t hide the navigation

Minimalism design should make users easily accomplish tasks without distraction. Therefore, you need to have intuitive navigation as the biggest contributing factor to this kind of simplicity. However, navigation in a minimalist interface brings a significant challenge. Many designers even choose to hide some or all of the navigation to remove all the unnecessary elements and streamline the content which can result in lower discoverability of navigation items. Therefore, the best way is to design minimalist websites that ensure visitors to find what they need easily.

  • Incorporate Functional Animation

Don’t forget your animation; it should also follow the principles of minimalism. It should be meaningful and functional. For example, you could use animation to save screen space. Aside from its functionality, animation also makes your site look a bit more fun.

  • Use minimalism for landing pages and portfolios

Remember that not every page is suitable with a minimalist aesthetic. Generally, minimalism is appropriate for portfolio websites and landing pages which usually have fairly simple goals and relatively little content. Furthermore, you may also find difficulties when applying minimalism effectively to a content-rich website.

The bottom line is, if you choose minimalism design as your choice, you have to consider many things before applying it on your design. At the end, what makes a good website is always the good combination of usability and great aesthetics.