While web site design deals with the structure and content of your entire site, web page design deals with the content and layout of the individual pages within your site. Web page design is concerned with what goes on the individual pages, how it is placed on the page, and where it is placed on the page.
Here are three important things to remember when designing web pages:
- They should be simple,
- They should be consistent, and
- They should be focused
Page Content Design
Page Content is the most important part of a website. It is why the website exists - the purpose of every website is to deliver some type of content to some type of audience for some type of purpose. There is an old saying: Content is King. An excellently designed website is absolutely useless and defeats its purpose if the content is poorly delivered or ineffective.
Consider the following when deciding how to deliver content to your users:
- Your content should be usable - You should create content that is appropriate for your audience, which means that you should know your audience and be familiar with them.
- Your content should have a goal - There must a purpose to your content - are you trying to sell, market, teach?
- Your content should be readable - Your audience should be able to read the content without trouble, which means that the font, font sizes, font colour, and contrast should be well chosen.
- Your content should be skimmable - Your audience should be able to skim through the content without trouble, picking up key facts with little effort. Using headings, bullets, short sentences, and short paragraphs helps make content skimmable.
- Your content should be delivered properly - Your pages should load in a reasonable amount of time and delivered using the appropriate medium, which means that flash, etc, should only be used as necessary.
Page Layout Design
Page layout is concerned with how you layout the contents of a web page on that web page. It is concerned with the positioning of the various elements that make up a web page. Apart from having the appropriate content on a web page, where this content is placed is just as important as the content itself.
Consider the following when deciding how to layout the content of your web page:
- Your layout should be simple - Your layout should not contain more elements than necessary, and it should support the content of the page. The sole purpose of the layout is to present the content.,
- Your layout should be consistent - Users should always know that they are your site because of its look and feel. They should get comfortable quickly, and easily remember how and where to find what they are looking for on your site.
- Your layout should be logical - The various elements of your page should be sensibly positioned, and aid the user in navigating your site. Menus should be distinguishable from the main content of the page, and should be sensibly positioned.
- Your layout should be clutter free - The main purpose of a web page is to deliver content, and this content should be the most prominent item on your page. Users should not be distracted by ads or irrelevant content.
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