Five Design Elements

When designing a website, the first and foremost consideration is always the target audience. Every element of the website is ultimately created with the view in mind. An effective website will not only attract new visitors, but win over visitors so that they will want to return for future visits. In order to be effective, a website must consider the elements of content, navigation, continuity, accessibility, and aesthetics.

In the business of web design, it can be agreed that content is an element of great importance. Content is what attracts new visitors, and with the proper design, it will be what retains visitors. Content should not be choked by the overuse of graphics and banners (Rowse, 2007). A new visitor will want to scan the main page for content relevant to the search that brought them to the page to begin with. Content should be broken up into smaller topic summaries on the main page, giving visitors options to read more about each summarized topic on related pages. The use of active white space on a page can help to structure and separate content (Sklar, 2003). Above all, content should be relevant, not only to the purpose of the website, but also to the target audience.

Hyperlinks imbedded in the text are a great way to not only enhance content, but also allow for greater navigation flexibility. Web pages should be designed with multiple navigational options to provide more interactivity for the visitor. Menu bars, hyperlinks, site maps, and functional layouts are all reasonable ways to provide interactivity. The more pages contained in a website, the more crucial it is to design so that visitors can plot their own course without getting lost. Menu sidebars that stay consistent on every page or displaying a user location identifier wherever they wander will help a user find their way around a website with ease (Sklar, 2003).

Continuity is another way to ensure the visitor has little trouble exploring content. This is accomplished by creating a unified look and feel for each page on the site. Consistent use of font types, color combinations, and design layout will give the visitor the impression of a well organized and interconnected website. Random, jarring changes in color and layout can be disorienting and distracting (Sklar, 2003). In order to create an effortless browsing experience for the visitor, continuity is vital.

When designing page layout, accessibility is an element that cannot be overlooked. A designer cannot control the way a visitor may see the website. Different browsers can affect font size, window size, image display. Varying monitor resolutions can alter the page size and logical sequence. Lower connection speeds may take longer to load a website dense with graphics and complex HTML (Jacobs, n.d.). Some ways to compensate for the differences in visitor capabilities is to optimize images, streamline and simplify HTML code, limit total page size, and eliminate unnecessary graphics and imbedded objects (Kyrnin, n.d.). Even when all of these steps are taken, not all browsers will be accommodated. Again, this is not something a designer can control. Instead of spending useless effort hacking code to please all browsers, a designer should just consider the browsers most likely used