Every design has its message. Every message has its audience. Every audience has its interpretation. When it comes to making a successful website the design must communicate the message to the intended audience, making obvious the correct interpretation. While at the same time be aesthetically pleasing to the intended audience and functionally understandable to even the simplest minds of that audience. The best design will accomplish all of this in the simplest way possible.
Every design has its message. Every message has its audience. Every audience has its interpretation. When it comes to making a successful website the design must communicate the message to the intended audience, making obvious the correct interpretation. While at the same time be aesthetically pleasing to the intended audience and functionally understandable to even the simplest minds of that audience. The best design will accomplish all of this in the simplest way possible.
Over the next few weeks I will discuss the fundamentals that will help to make a design successful. Each article will discuss a particular aspect that needs to be addressed and how that aspect makes a web site work better. This week I will focus on the basic structure. This will include form, symmetry, and balance. I will not be focusing on the technical detail of how to accomplish these things, only the purpose and results that these things have.
When first designing it is important to decide on the symmetrical appearance. Most sites are either aligned on the left or centered, few (if any) are aligned on the right. A site that is aligned on either side should consider the possibility of the negative space on the opposing side. However a centered site will have space on both sides. This amount of space will vary depending on the size of the viewers screen, so the design should account for this by either expanding to accommodate, or by using it as a part of the design. For instance a background image can be fixed to the right side allowing more of it to show as the space on the right is increased.
A centered site gives the impression of symmetry while a right/left aligned site impresses asymmetry. Either can be useful and will depend upon the designers intentions. Centered is generally more formal and is great for fancy or high-class design, or anywhere that symmetry is desired. An off-centered design is usually less formal because of its asymmetrical balance.
Designers must considered must consider balance and symmetry in initial stages of web development because these stages setup the foundation of the design. Once the foundation is laid the “walls” can be built. These walls are the blocks such as the header, the footer, navigation, and content areas. I will discuss these and how they relate to the symmetry and balance in my next article.
Leave Your Response