10 rules for completely EPIC web design
Anthony Dines
Designer : New York
topics: Barbarian, User Experience, Alcoholic Beverages, Food, and Rock and Roll
filed under: Creativity, Design, Process, Internet Culture, and User Experience
I’ve been designing for the web for the better part of 7 years, professionally for 4, so while I’m no expert, I have made about eleventy billion mistakes over the years. Each of which I have learned from. Here’s some bad-ass tips that I wish someone had told me:
- Learn how to design with form elements. These are a fundamental flaw of millions of sites on the web, and something that is sadly overlooked by many designers as an after-thought. I can’t stress this enough. If you can’t design a form that gets a user from the beginning to the submit button within a form without making them think, then I suggest you read this book: Web Form Design – by Luke Wroblewski
- Research! In nearly every aspect of web design, examples of solutions can be found everywhere. If you’re designing a page that needs to display a recipe, find out what others are doing online. But don’t stop there: you can take cues from magazines, video games, letter-pressed posters, television, and even architecture and industrial design. They all have a wonderfully rich history to reference. The best answers will be found in the most unlikely of places.
- Every pixel counts. The entire screen is your canvas, so don’t let all your hard work go to waste because you didn’t think anyone would notice that your buttons look like ass. Your horizontal rules are just as important to telling a visual story as your video player or main navigation. Don’t let a few flat notes ruin an otherwise awesome web site.
- It’s alive! This isn’t print media, and this isn’t television. It’s not a passive experience, so give the user an experience they can invest in, something that is uniquely only available on the web. Make them fall in love with the actions of the site, not just the content. Make them love clicking a button. Make them smile as often as possible.
- Step back as often as possible. Let your Mom, who is scared of the internet, test your site. Don’t help her. Just watch and listen. You’d be surprised at how much a few confused comments will help your work. Always test for your audience, since no one will ever know you design’s intentions as well as you do.
- You aren’t the King of the Planet. OMFG RAD! You made an award winning website! So what, that doesn’t mean you have all the answers. Know what others are doing, because they might have solved a design problem you ran into way better than you ever thought to do. Never stop learning from others just because people tell you that your agency is totally epic. (But definitely be stoked to be there!)
- Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! Never fear, even the most complex problem can be solved with the least complex of design solutions. Don’t make your users have to think about the interface, but rather make considerable efforts to make them enjoy it.
- Understand the nerdy shit. Get your feet wet in as many aspects of web design as you can. Learn how to code what you build. Understanding the strengths and limitations of the “nerdy code stuff” will help you design a site is an all around better experience. Hell, you might even realize that all those awesome gradients you love to use are actually a pain in the ass to code.
- There are no rules yet! Everyday, a new site pops up with wonderful new solutions for presenting content to a user. Break boundaries and rules as often as possible. Make your own rules, and then break those as well.
- Enjoy everything you make! Just like anything else in life, if you don’t put all your heart and soul into it, people will definitely know. Some of the best sites out there were obviously fun to design. Find what you love in every project, and then dive in!
6 comments
Generally forms are left to the browser to style which is terrible, you can make forms look awesome why leave it to the browser!
Thanks for the post.