Website navigation is one of the core experiences for browsers. An effective navigation system helps the site architecture, determining where users are lead, and how they navigate a site.

An effective web navigation panel is a map to the site, and without it, the site feels chaotic and hard to follow. Without an effective navigation system, the website becomes ineffective.

When designing a website navigation system, the design needs to be simple enough to make sense to the user, but complex enough to direct users where they need to go.

Try to map it in your mind as for a dashboard UI design. Make everything simple and easy to reach.

A vital aspect of design

An effective navigation system will keep users on your site for longer. Without this, viewers sometimes ‘bounce’ or access a single page and then leave the site.

An effective navigation panel will also make your site easy to map to Google, improving search rankings.

An intuitive website that is easy to navigate seems friendly and will encourage users to engage. Therefore, an effective navigation system is essential to the success of a website.

Navigation panels may come in creative forms, and with unusual designs, but what makes a website navigation panel interesting effective, and how would you design it?

Planning your menu

There are no set rules for creating website navigation systems. Navigation systems can be very versatile.

Some may be simple, like in the case of an app website, while others are very complex, in case of a large ecommerce site. There may be different navigation systems for users who are logged in and for those who are simply browsing.

In order to create an effective navigation system, it is important to consider what information a website will display, and how to arrange this in order of importance, creating a navigation system that will be suitable.

Design your menu around users needs

Although drop-down menus look great, they may be difficult for search engines to crawl. They might hide important information that can be hard to find at first glance.

This might mean important pages don’t get the visits they require. Worst of all, website viewers find them annoying.

This is because when they scan a page and then click a mouse, the drop-down menu appears.

Users may not understand how to sort the menu or categorize it, and it can make the website feel chaotic. This can make website navigation feel like a slow and inefficient experience.

Multiple Navigation Menus

Viewers interact with a website by searching for a way to navigate it and find their way around it.

This is why, when information becomes increasingly complex, multiple navigation tools are often used to make the user experience more effective.

This happens because not all content fits into a single menu. As a result, many websites have both primary and secondary navigation systems.

Primary navigation systems

Primary navigation systems are used for the most important information, such as About Us, or Homepages, which ensures that the user gets all the information needed as quickly as possible.

The content placed in the primary navigation system of a website is always relative, however, and is determined by the site.

Secondary website navigation systems

Secondary navigation can be placed anywhere on the site, and often comes in the form of subheadings.

It may include topics such as Frequently Asked Questions, help, or client area pages, which don’t give the user a broad introduction to the site but still contain relevant information, and the user might search for the information nevertheless.

Areas selected for secondary navigation would be determined by the purpose of the site.

Ensure your site is easily accessed

When creating your website navigation, avoid using programs (Flash, JavaScript, jQuery) which may limit access to certain users.

The more people can access your site easily and without any complication, the more effective your design.

Keep it Traditional

Designing an effective website is about making the process as familiar as possible to your users. This makes a website feel intuitive and easy to use.

Follow standard expectations when designing your website navigation system. If users expect navigation along the top or left-hand side of a site, use these standard spaces.

This gives users the opportunity to engage with the site, reducing ‘bounce rate’ or users who leave the site quickly.

Although uniqueness and quirkiness provide an important element to website design, making your site appear more interesting and unique, this shouldn’t be incorporated into the navigation panel.

Keep up to date

Despite traditional navigation systems appearing along the top and side of the site, however, there is room for discovery.

New and different navigation systems are starting to emerge which use a slide-in effect to bring menus into view, and take users where they want to go.

Hidden navigation elements such as a hamburger icon in the top corner, or hover effect links, focus on both the design and usability of a website.

Designers use the intuitive placement of icons to guide users to the navigation panel, which is simple and easy to use.

One page scrolling websites may also be effective for viewers by presenting information as one long, continuous page instead of multiple pages which may be more complicated to use.

When designing with innovative navigation systems, ensure that your design will be responsive to mobile devices and that users will still be able to effectively negotiate the navigation panel on a smaller screen.

Getting back to the top of the page

Instead of automatically scrolling to the top of the page, some websites offer a menu on the footer of the page, to allow the user to choose where to go next. Consider whether this would be an effective navigation tool for your site.

Responsive menus

Responsive menus adjust and adapt to different styles and sizes of screen, and navigation can be difficult to design while keeping a consistent feel.

However, with mobile devices plotting the way to the future, being highly personal and constantly accessible, ensure that your site is easy to navigate on small screens so that you keep viewers interested.

If you liked this article and you’ve learned a lot, you will probably find our second to last article helpful, as well.

What is rapid prototyping, and why would a designer want to use it? What is the difference between traditional UI prototyping and rapid prototyping? Why is this important in the field of research?

As a designer, you might be familiar with traditional UI prototyping. UI prototyping gives a visual representation of an idea.

When designers use traditional prototyping, they create a visual illustration of how a website should look and behave.

Rapid prototyping has followed on from traditional prototyping. Designers now create a prototype and then rework their designs, forming or burying changes according to user interactions. This iterative approach is known as rapid prototyping.

Rapid prototyping involves creating a mock-up or prototype of a website, application or mobile app. And don’t even think of using Illustrator to create a rapid prototype.

This prototype is then sent out for validation from clients, site users, designers and stakeholders. Changes will be made according to any feedback received.

Rapid prototyping creates a quick mock-up of a site design

Designers use rapid prototyping to create a quick mockup of a website or application. Included in this prototype is the way a designer believes the site or app will work.

The designer then explores how each aspect of a design will work in reality. This includes how a site will be navigated and how users will engage with the tasks at hand.

This design is then sent out to be tested by future users. Users offer feedback, explaining how they were (or were not) able to navigate a site, and where the site felt mysterious and difficult to use.

Once this feedback has been received, the designer will incorporate it into the user interface. The prototype is then disposed of.

Gaining feedback

As we see, the prototype provides the opportunity to receive feedback on the design.

By sharing the design with users, other designers, clients and stakeholders, the designer gains insight into how the application will be used. This helps to reduce any blind spots in the design.

A rapid prototype, therefore, allows the designer the opportunity to gain feedback early on in the design process.

This offers up the opportunity to improve on the final design and reduce the need for changes during the final stage of a project.

As the project develops, changes become far more complex to introduce. Early insights are therefore beneficial.

Rapid prototyping, therefore, generates feedback quickly. This can be used to streamline the designs until the prototype feels smooth and users no longer have questions about how to use the site or application.

Once the majority of these questions have been answered, a designer can begin work on the user interface.

Your prototype may still have edge areas

When you create a prototype, this will always lead to questions. Some questions may be general and others are very specific.

Every product has an area which impacts on your user experience and causes unhappiness or frustration. These are not always easy to identify using a rapid prototype.

In cases such as these, it is often easier for developers or engineers to list edge cases and work with them one at a time until these problems are resolved.

Sending your design out for testing

When you use rapid prototyping, you will send out your design for testing. Users will try to follow tasks in order to navigate their way around an application or site.

When you send out your application for testing, try to find users who represent your population as a whole.

These users would include people who are not highly computer literate, people who have visual impairments or people who have intellectual impairments.

By introducing a wide range of users to test an application, a designer will gain insight into any struggles users might have.

A facilitator can be used to show users what is needed from them during the evaluation as well as assess the difficulties users experience.

Once you’ve gained insight into your target users and how they are able to use your app, you can make changes. You will also be able to create user categories in order to understand who will use your application.

Users who are computer literate or who have knowledge in an industry will use your application differently to those who do not. Assess who will be using your application and design accordingly.

Test your prototype as you go along

As a designer, there are so many different ideas to explore and so much you would want to achieve. However, remember to test your designs as you go along.

This will help you to catch any mistakes you are making and resolve them quickly. If you go too far in your design, you may find there are a great many bugs that need to be repaired.

This may take you additional time and effort as each new problem impacts on a different area of your design. Short, rapid bursts which shape an iterative process are much easier to work with.

Refine your prototype

Once you receive feedback, it is time to refine your designs and create new changes. Some of these changes will be effective and will become a part of the new design. Others will be less so, and these are changes which will become buried.

Analyse the information you obtain as this will help you understand how users engage with your designs, what brings value and what causes confusion or frustration.

This will help you understand the themes which are emerging and how severe any design problems are.

The scope of your prototype

When you initially create a prototype keep it small and limit your areas of exploration. You can then expand this prototype if you need to.

Once your prototype has been tested and retested, and you’ve incorporated all the changes you have made, you’ll be ready to work on your final product.

The process of rapid prototyping should be fast. Changes are made quickly and a new product is developed until the user experience is a positive one.

When you create a rapid prototype you aren’t doing so in order to create a fully functioning site. Instead, the prototype is simply there to visually map out your user experience (UX).

Don’t prototype the full product

When you’re working on your prototype, avoid releasing the full designs.

Instead, simply release sections of your work as your ideas and concepts emerge.

This will assist you with gaining insight step by step without worrying about the ongoing hassles which will continually emerge with a larger product.

Don’t make changes at the last moment

Rapid prototyping is about creating small, frequent changes in an iterative process. Many designers leave changes until the last minute.

Very often teams only really ask for feedback as deadlines start to loom and they want to show clients a final product or result.

However, this approach isn’t always a helpful one. There may be a great many changes needed to the User Interface and this will create a ton of work on a tight deadline.

Ask for final feedback before you start building the site. This will enable your team to gain insight before the deadline emerges.

Organize yourselves and set up meetings to discuss what needs to be done. Use a tool that you know it will work for you. Calendly is good for setting up appointments. If that one doesn’t suit you, use a Calendly alternative.

You can then spend your time working on the design for your final product rather than rebuilding your prototype.

Define the scope of your prototype early on

You don’t want to spend a great deal of time working on your rapid prototype. Find out the specs of the prototype you need to release for testing.

This will give you an idea of the work you need to produce in order to receive feedback.

Explore the scope of your design, the size of your screens, aesthetics and how precise your mocks ups need to be.

Map out how precisely you need to develop your user interactions when you create your prototype. Do you need realistic buttons or animated transitions?

What content will you need to place on your site? Will you be using precise imagery and the exact text, or can you use dummy images?

How will you work with code and what levels will you need?

If you agree on these specs early on, both you and your clients will know what you need for your prototype. This can avoid stress or disappointment at a later stage.

Keep your process rapid

Whether you are looking for user insights or client feedback, rapid prototyping will enable you to ensure that your designs are on the right track.

By following the guidelines in this article, you’ll be able to keep your process quick and efficient. Rapid prototyping is an iterative process which produces quick feedback in order to improve the user experience.

You know time management is important so you’ll value the fact that this will also save you time and reduce your workload when you follow the process.

Designers and coders provide different services in web design. Should designers be able to code? Is an all in one service beneficial?

Skill sets are becoming increasingly specialized. Designers would love to have a wide range of skills. It isn’t just as easy as following typography tutorials online. There’s more to that.

This would enable a full service when it comes to website development. However, if designers spend a great deal of time learning code, they won’t be able to spend that time working on their designs. Think of the CRUD system in WordPress. Can you imagine as designer having to learn this principle?

In a world of multiple skills, each aspect of web design has become unique. UX specialists use research, testing and analytics.

Coders use HTML and CSS. Visual designers create sites which resonate with the viewer. Great website design requires teamwork and each person focuses on what they love.

When web developers work as specialists, each team member is able to make a contribution. Each is able to offer a great service.

The trick is for designers and coders to collaborate in order to develop a great product.

How do you communicate effectively with your site developer so that you get the end result you want? This article presents some helpful tips.

Learn some basic coding

As a designer, it often helps to learn some basic code. When you design, you use your imagination to bring a new creation to life.

If you are able to visualize this design in basic code, this will enable you to communicate more easily with your site developers.

There’s no need to understand the intricate code. However, a very basic understanding of web technologies will pave the way to easy communication.

Learning the basics of coding gives you a wider understanding of the building materials which will be used to construct your design.

You don’t have to use them, but it does help you to understand what they might be and how they combine to bring your design into being.

See it from your developer’s perspective

When you understand a basic amount of code, you’ll be able to see your designs from the developer’s perspective. This is because your designs will end up being written in HTML and styled with CSS.

Understanding your developer’s tools will enable you to develop a deeper relationship with the person you’re working with.

When you’re able to view your designs in a different language, and from a different perspective, you can communicate deeply. This will enable you to create an effective end product.

If there are complex aspects of the design that you don’t understand, a developer will be able to engage with you. Sharing complex technical ideas is easier if you understand the basics.

This means that your developer can communicate you and assist you in areas of doubt. Understanding the difference between HTML and CSS creates a stepping stone to effective communications.

Have a plan

When you work with a developer, you want to know that you are going to be on the same page. It is often helpful to share your plans from the very beginning.

Include your developer in your project when your ideas are being conceptualized. By the time you start to design, your developer will already have insight into where you want to go.

By planning a site together, your developer will know from the outset where you plan to go with your designs and the routes you would like to follow.

This roadmap will assist you both while you are working. Knowing the route you want to follow is essential for creating an effective result.

Create a practical path to follow

Once you’ve mapped out your journey, your next step is to create a practical solution in order to bring results.

Designers and developers often think from different angles. If you can map out your ideas in a practical manner, this will help your developer to understand how to work with them.

Simplify each aspect of your design so that your developer can gain insight into how to work with each element.

Your developer will need to know how your users will interact with your designs and what you want your end results to be.

Creating examples will assist your developer to gain insight into your goals. Visual examples such as prototypes help your developer to visualize your goals.

This will create a reference point for your developer to draw upon while coding your site.

When you’re working with two very different viewpoints, it is important to create a bridge between these two worlds.

Remember to be practical. Vague and ambiguous terms or concepts create confusion and misunderstandings.

Tips for designers

Explain what you would like to do with your designs. Show your developer want you would like to achieve with each and every aspect of your design.

Explore how the different aspects of your design work together or interact. Look at your design from a holistic perspective.

Be thorough. Your developer won’t be able to work from an incomplete design. You’ll need to have each aspect of your design ready for your developer to work with.

Ask for insight. Your developer will be able to assist you if you are unsure or have questions. If you don’t know if a font will work, ask your developer’s opinion.

Be efficient, handing over all files in the correct resolution, size and format. This will ensure your developer has the tools needed without the extra work.

Create a style guide as a roadmap

By creating a style guide, you’ll be able to create a clear map for your site. This will help to create a clear communication process between you and your developer. This is because both of you will know what you are doing next.

By using a style guide, the designer will create a consistent site. Each colour, font, shadow or shape will be recorded and repeated.

This creates a sense of harmony for the site design. For the developer, they create a checklist. Your developer will also be able to use the style guide as a reference point for coding.

When you’re creating a style guide, be thorough. Explain the contexts of your design. Share how your user interface works.

When would you like to scroll? How will content be arranged under tabs? Why is your page designed in a specific way? This helps your developer to understand the thought process behind your designs.

Customize your style guide towards your site needs. If your logo is crucial to the site and needs a great deal of attention you may list a great many points.

However, if your site focuses on typography, this might take up a lot of space in your guide.

Style guides focus on the building blocks of a design. Some common areas recorded in the style guide include:

Typography: recording the different typefaces used helps to keep the page consistent.

List the font choices, styles and sizes and how these apply to each aspect of a site. What are the choices for headings, subheadings or body text? How should the copy be displayed?

Layouts: share how your site will be composed. What are the margins? How many columns will you use for your copy? How will your text be aligned? How will your page be composed?

Colour schemes: Be specific. Record the exact Pantone colours you use. Also, include the colour combinations for RGB and CMYK.

Reusable code: This is the space for your developer to create code references for the different sections of your site. By creating code references, your developer will be able to cut and paste the sections they need for each area of a site.

Graphics: This is the space you can use for icons, artworks, images, illustrations, symbols and buttons.

Each area of your site should have guidelines which explain the layout or composition, and how each element of the design should interact. Provide information on where each image is located.

Navigation: Provide information on how to navigate your site. Which buttons will you use? Will your site use sidebars? Which links will you use? What about drop down menus? Share each aspect of navigation as well as the thought processes behind them.

Logos: Create clear rules for logos and designs. Some companies have a style guide simply for logos, but these can be incorporated into the style guide as well.

Share the styles, colours, placement and any typography rules associated with logos. Mascot guidelines can also be placed in this section of your style guide.

Design Philosophies: If your company has a strong brand ethos, share this with the style guide. What message does the company want to create? How can this be put into practice? Which techniques are used to achieve this goal?

This guideline creates a means of communication between you and your team members. The larger your team, the more precise your guideline should be.

Helpful practices for working in teams

When you’re working with a team, you might not communicate regularly. Some members of the team may even be working from different locations. These tips will help you to keep collaborations effective:

Create folders for your resources. This will help your team access images, icons, fonts or illustrations. You could also include codes for colours and backgrounds. This keeps all your designs accessible to your team members.

Use names for your folders. This helps your team to access and format resources easily. A coherent organizing system saves time.

Describe interactions and animations: If you are using animations, their interactions won’t be clearly evident to team members. Describe them by providing notes affixed to your wireframes.

Use storyboards to explain how your links work and where each one will lead.

Check your fonts: ensure you have the correct licenses to use each font on your site. To be sure that you don’t mess up you can use one of the best free fonts on Font Squirrel. They’re free for commercial use and you don’t have to waste time looking at licenses.

Summary

When working in collaboration, designers and developers approach projects from a different perspective.

By understanding website production from these two different viewpoints, designers can work effectively to ensure a great website will be produced.

Design and development each play a crucial role in creating a site. As web design becomes increasingly specialized, there is an increased need for the various members of the team to work well together.

When specialists work well together, each member adds to the whole, creating a stellar result.

For more valuable resources on Web Development, make sure you visit our blog daily!

Website design is a constantly evolving field, with new styles or designs emerging all of the time. New software is always being developed as a new tool for creativity. New designs are produced every day.

If you are inspired by this, you may wonder how you can create a modern web design? Let’s break down some of the shared web design elements which pull together a modern look.

We can then look at the new styles to choose from. After this, we’ll look at features that will make your site stand out.

Elements of modern web design

Typography

Typography or the choice of lettering you use on your site can help to make your brand easily recognizable. This gives your brand identity and creates a sense of familiarity or trust with site users.

Use typography or lettering to communicate a message to your brand. This is particularly true with fonts that will attract attention to your site’s elements, such as header fonts. Decide if you would like them to be quirky, elegant, sleek, fun or serious depending on the message you want to create for your brand.

Your header font will also direct your viewer’s attention to different sections of your copy. Keep it legible and easy to read as it will give your viewers quick and easy hints to the content present on a page.

Responsive Design

Responsive design is adaptable to screens of various sizes. This means your viewer will be able to easily navigate a site from a mobile phone or tablet. So, no more HTML tables. Those are just for displaying information, not website layouts.

In order to create a modern design, your website would need to be responsive. You can work this out by adapting the size of your screen in your browser, and ensuring that copy is still easy to read, and the site can be navigated.

When creating a responsive design, take your background images into consideration. Imagery is often used to share a message on a website. It also has an aesthetic appeal.

The difficulty with images is that they come in standard sizes. However, they can be adjusted for responsive websites using CSS.

This will keep the features of your design accurate despite the size of the screen used to view your site. Your imagery or illustrations will still convey the message intended and will be attractive to viewers.

Styles of website design

Each style or design described below will use typography and responsive imagery to add to the overall aesthetic of the site.

Grid Designs

Grid-based websites have become very popular in the last few years. This style has a series of vertical and horizontal lines which are used to create order on the site.

You will see it often on eCommerce sites with T-Shirt templates, watches, tech products, you name it. They all look good in a grid.

It is a simple design to use. With grid-style designs, you will be able to give interesting information to your visitors while displaying some great imagery or photography. When working with grid designs, you will keep your site clean and uncluttered for the most effective results.

Minimal Designs

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Minimal designs are based on the idea that less is more. The concept is simple, and the goal is to keep your designs clean but still lifelike by relying on a small detail. This balance can be very hard to achieve.

Minimalism relies on white space, typography and a lack of buttons or links.

The designs have a unified feel across their pages and are more about copy. Their goal is to make information leap off the page so that viewers receive a clear message about a product.

Many sites are renowned for their visual imagery and use of illustration to tell a story. By its focus on the text, a minimal website design sets itself apart.

Flat Designs

The flat design draws from minimalism, emphasizing typography, flat colors, and simplicity. However, it maintains its distinctions. The focus is on two-dimensional colors without drop shadows, embossing or other tools which add depth to the page.

Flat design uses strong colors and typography. Instead of the background images sometimes used by minimalism, the flat design relies on a single, flat color. This color can be vibrant or muted and is often contrasted against a white text.

Illustration based designs

Illustration creates a fun feel to a website and is able to communicate complex messages through aesthetic images.

As web design develops, many designers use illustrations to add creativity to a site. This has lead to many different illustration styles that are emerging in modern website design.

Flat Design Illustrations

These illustrations are based on the techniques of flat design, which remove 3D elements within the design.

These are simple, clean and uncluttered images that communicate a clear message without demanding from the viewer. Flat design illustration is helpful for grabbing a viewer’s attention.

Textures and gradients

Although flat designed websites often rely on solid colors, some designers have expanded on this concept. They produce backgrounds with textures or color gradients.

These forms of illustration are often a combination of the single colored elements of flat design and realism.

This form of illustration offers simplicity to a site. Whether they rely on bold color or strong contrasting images, they capture a viewer’s attention.

Low-Poly Illustration Style

Low Poly illustration style relies on simple shapes placed together to create D Images. Although flat design has dominated the web in recent years, the 3D design is making a return.

Illustrators and game designers use low poly (from the word polygon) images. They use them to add texture and depth to an image while keeping it minimal. This is a design style that can spice up any site and it looks as though it is here to stay.

Brightly colored designs

One of the most popular illustration styles at the moment uses bright, contrasting colors to grab attention.

This kind of design often uses simple shapes or blocks in order to add interest to a site. Some designers have used neon colors in order to create a futuristic feel to their websites.

Outline illustration styles

Outline drawings remind users of childhood images or illustrations and create a nostalgic trend that is eye-catching and effective.

These drawings are often combined with bright colors and present a simple image that is easy to understand. Outline illustrations add a unique feeling to a site.

Pencil Drawings

Hand-drawn pencil illustrations are an unusual choice for web design. Sometimes sketchy, sometimes detailed, they create a memorable collection of images for any website.

Watercolor illustrations

Watercolor illustrations create a vision of true art. When images are produced in watercolor they seem to flow across the page, showing layers of light, a range of color and a sense of vibrancy.

Imagination is the limit when it comes to watercolor, and this technique is used for many different illustration styles in web design.

Rules to Create a Modern Website

Create a Layout

Before you begin, create a layout for your page. Planning or composing your page helps you to get a feel for the overall plan of your site. When you work step by step, your design might seem as though it is working. However, when you have completed your work, you might feel dissatisfied with the result.

By planning your design, you’ll get a sense of your overall concept or layout before you start. You can plan using paper and pen or make use of computer software. This will help you to begin the process of designing your site.

Use a style guide

A style guide gives you guidelines to follow when working on a site. This helps to create a sense of consistency or uniformity throughout a site.

You can download style guides from the internet, or even create one of your own. You can use it to store information about color, font choice and all other aspects you are applying to design your site.

Keep your fonts simple

Typography has been getting a lot of attention when it comes to web design. This is because lettering can make a strong impression, create an atmosphere and give identity to a brand. However, if you are using unique fonts on your site, keep them simple.

Modern fonts are simple and easy to read. They contrast well against the background of a site to keep them legible. When they are large in size, this makes words clearly visible to the viewer. As soon as your viewer loads your site, content should be easy to read and give insight into what is on the page.

Make your website responsive

As mobile devices become an increasingly popular means of accessing data, making your site responsive becomes crucial.

Test your website to see how easy it is to operate on a mobile phone screen or tablet.

Use responsive images

If you’re placing images on your site, make sure they are clear enough to give a message to your viewer, and that they are aesthetic. High-resolution images that are properly placed will create a positive impact.

Many web designers use responsive images that are interactive. If a viewer clicks on a certain area of the image, he will be taken to a new area of the site.

This is a new aspect of modern website design. If you do use this tactic, make sure your image or message is clear to your viewer. If not, use words.

Feature videos

Adding a video to your website will often assist your viewer in understanding a product. A video using autoplay is often helpful, as not all viewers will click to activate a video by themselves.

If you do choose to include a video, this must explain a product and make it clear what it offers clients. The purpose of the video would be to create clarity for a user.

Make the navigation easy to use

Easy navigation menus make your site easy to access for viewers. When your viewers can find a way around a site easily, your site will feel intuitive.

I know that you want to design a creative website, but it should also be good in terms of UX.

Ensure that your navigation menu is easy to locate. When your viewers have located your menu, will they be able to understand it? Will they know how to find the page they are looking for?

Mobile application devices often use hamburger menus because these are suitable for a small screen. However, they are not popular with website developers… and even UX designers.

Many websites are now using old-fashioned menus which are easy to locate. Old school menus also give the viewer the information needed on how to navigate the site. Sidebars are also helpful to use as they reduce screen space.

Make everything as easy as possible to lead your visitors to the pages where you want them to generate a conversion. If you’re sending them to the contact page, make sure all the contact details are present there, including a Google maps integration, and make sure Google maps loads correctly.

Use easy to understand copy on your navigation

Use simple words and easy instructions on your navigation menu so that your viewers can find out where to go. Keep any images you use (such as a shopping cart or search button) standard so that your viewers know exactly what they mean.

Explore color

When you are creating your website, give a lot of attention to your color scheme. Color sends a psychological message to your viewer. Adding life doesn’t mean you need to use primary colors or overwhelm your viewer. Ensure your message suits your brand.

When you are using color, think about how you will create contrast so that you can direct your viewer’s attention. There must also be enough contrast so that your font is easy to read. Keep your imagery clear so that your viewers are able to get a clear message from your site.

Live Chat

Many websites come with the opportunity for viewers to engage through live chat. This form of support is replacing ‘Contact Us’ pages on a website. Engaging quickly and efficiently with viewer problems or questions often helps your potential clients work out answers or find information. It also helps to develop a relationship with your client.

Live chats mean that an employee will be online at all times. This often takes place in shifts so that there is always somebody to engage with a viewer and provide a helpful response.

Ending thoughts

Creating a modern website design that keeps up with the times is important in the digital world.

New styles are emerging, and new software is available to enhance the viewer experience. As a designer, understanding current trends will help you to update popular websites and offer your clients the latest in digital technology.

An online portfolio provides examples of your work and provides examples of your style. It’s often the first port of call for people seeking to hire you.

If you’re a freelancer, an online portfolio provides examples of your work and allows people to contact you to offer employment.

As a student, your online portfolio may be the first port of call for prospective employers, and if you are a professional designer who works in a studio, an online presence means you can showcase some of your work, creating an online presence.

What to consider when building up your portfolio

Make it attractive. As a designer, you are showing off what you can do. An attractive portfolio website enables you to show your skills. Use bold fonts, illustrations, animations, and whatever you have in your toolbox to convince clients to hire you.

Include the most important elements of your work. If you’re an illustrator, show off what you can do, explain your niche, and make your work clear to those who might not have an insider’s perspective.

Ensure that it is user-friendly. The more easily potential clients are able to navigate your blog or portfolio, the more easily they will be able to engage with your platform, or find important details.

Provide a clean layout, which helps users to find the sections of your work they are most interested in.

How to create an effective online portfolio

Design a logo

A logo provides you with a sense of identity and helps to define your brand, providing a visual representation of who you are and what you do.

Placed on your website, it will be the first thing your visitor sees. You could place it on the upper left-hand side of the page (so that it will be seen when the eye moves from left to right).

Alternatively, you can create a sense of hierarchy, placing your logo at the top center of your page, so that it makes a large statement. Your logo will make it clear who owns your site.

Present yourself as a brand

Branding yourself means sharing who you are, your strengths, weaknesses, and personality. Share with your online viewers. Let them know what motivates you, what makes you curious, and where your talents lie. Be true to yourself. Let your readers see you for who you are.

If you don’t enjoy writing blogs, don’t do it. Let your visitors see your images or illustrations instead. Let your viewers see where you shine. Present a unified front to the world. Consistency is key.

Look at how others are doing this and inspire yourself from their work.

Make it personal

Make your site personal. The more you share with your readers about your education, background, how long you’ve been in the business, and where you hope to go, the more your users will get to know and therefore trust you.

Allow your viewers to see awards you’ve won or any achievements you’ve made. After all, if they know where your talents lie, they will understand more clearly what you could offer them.

Maintain a blog

A blog is an online journal which provides a portfolio to readers. You can write, or present images of your work, projects you are interested in, or ideas that inspire you.

Your blog can share your areas of expertise and will prevent your website from lying static.

Highlight your interests and future goals

When you let your clients know of the job you want, highlighting areas that interest you, you’re letting your clients know where you’re going.

If you’re interested in web design, share this. If illustration is your goal, let your clients know. Focus on your niche market.

This means you’ll gain a following of people who share similar interests, and you will more easily be able to anticipate your clients needs even before meeting them.

Share your best work

Less is more when showcasing your work through an online portfolio. You want clients to see your best work. Your online viewers may be impatient, and won’t have time to look through a great deal of work.

Place the spotlight on work you are most happy with. This will help you to create a good impression. Your portfolio should represent you at your best.

Share your process

Once you’ve chosen your best work, let your viewers see how it has been presented or put together. You could show your early design stages, a story or mood board which assisted you with planning your project, or your project in the early stages of development.

Present the whole piece or finished product first, then allow your viewers to see photo shots of your developing work. You could use stylized photography, as long as it doesn’t distract your readers.

Use social networking websites

Social networking websites allow your viewers to interact or hold conversations with you.

Encourage those interested in your work to follow you on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Instagram. This will assist you in building a following of people who may become future clients.

Sell yourself

What other creative talents do you have?

If you are an illustrator, but you are also able to produce animation, let your viewers know. Provide examples on your website so that you can maximize your talents.

Keep your portfolio dynamic

Once you’ve developed a killer portfolio, remember to keep updating it. You’ll maintain interest if you keep your followers updated on what you’re doing, and what continues to spark your interest. Remember to keep editing your sites as your interests change and your work develops.

If you don’t have a portfolio website already, or if you do have one but you don’t like spending time updating or maintaining it, we’d suggest that you use a framework to avoid CSS & HTML problems, but also redirects issues caused by some plugins.

Be original

Designing your own site and letting your readers get to know you create a unique product. It might take a while to know what you would like to do, and how you’d best like to present yourself, but don’t feel tempted to copy.

A unique and personalized site will enable your readers to interact with you, creating a sense of warmth and loyalty.

Ensure your site loads quickly

Online viewers are impatient, and if a site doesn’t load quickly (within less than three seconds) they will often abandon it and go in search of a different option.

Choose a suitable site hosting package which allows for your page to load quickly. Avoid having a slow site.

Some tips

Share your location. This can help clients to assess where you are from, and some clients prefer working with people who are operating from a similar time zone.

Validate your website code. If you’re going to be building sites for clients, show them your own code is valid.

If you don’t have a large portfolio, share what you have, and guide clients towards your interests. You could also interact with other designers on a platform like Twitter.

Use a narrative style to tell a story about yourself and your work. This enables interaction with readers or potential clients.

Explain your niche, and what makes you unique. This is particularly important for people who are not in the industry but would still potentially make use of your services.

Create a backstory of how you got into your work, and what motivated you. How did your passions develop?

Show how you have connections throughout the creative world. Share your clients, any press or publications.

Be approachable. Let your clients know who you are, the hobbies and interests you have, and some of your pleasures. This creates a sense of warmth and allows your readers to relate to you.

In an internet world, a website is a way to share information with readers and to convert users into possible clients. Websites are a client’s portfolio and make up the center of marketing efforts.

However, in a rapidly changing world, where internet trends shift and change, a website may grow to feel outdated. Redesigning a website is expensive. Here are some ways to keep your website efficient.

Design for your audience

When working towards your audience, remember to use market research to find out who your audience is. Then make sure to design your website around your audience.

A corporate audience would engage differently with teenage gamers, for example. Once you know who your audience is, match your website to user needs. Request user feedback, and then follow these guidelines to improve your site.

Create personalized experiences for your users

There have been a lot of improvements lately in personalized experiences. You’ve seen chat bots and conversational interfaces everywhere. But an interesting new feature that you might see is age-responsive design.

It may sound strange, but it’s actually an amazing thing. With it, you can tweak the user’s experience to suit it better for them. You can change the font size, color or other elements that will make it easier for older people to consume your content.

Less is more

Internet viewers are impatient, and you might only have a few seconds to hold their attention.

Keep only important information on your homepage, and let viewers find what they need by installing an effective navigation panel.

Include your logo, brand, and call to action details on your homepage, so that users know that they have come to the right place. From here, users can navigate to different areas of your site.

Structure your site

Your navigation panel, content, and action panel should be designed as clearly and concisely as possible so that they meet user needs.

If a website flows and a user is easily able to communicate, this will ensure return customers.

Text

When including written content, look at the size and choice of font. Your goal is to make the content as easy to read as possible. Use only three fonts at most, and divide paragraphs into easy to read headings or subheadings. Make sure you’re writing an easy to understand website tagline. It’s the first thing your users will see.

Use bullet points to make instructions clear. Read the text carefully so that you are aware of how to structure information to meet users’ needs.

Also, make sure the fonts you use are easy to read in paragraphs or titles. There are lots of articles with free fonts. Pick one or two fonts that are fit for your audience and have a good readability score and you won’t be missing any visitors/clients due to font issues.

Navigation bar

Your navigation bar is used by viewers to access your site. Make it simple, easy to access and efficient.

Help visitors to return to your homepage easily. Your homepage displays your brand and logo, and assists with defining your product.

Page speed

Internet users are impatient. Ensure your page downloads quickly. This is particularly important for mobile devices; which viewers may use to quickly access information during a quick time gap.

If your user is going for a quick cup of coffee or making a hasty purchase between phone calls, and your page takes a long time to install, your client will feel frustrated and you’ll lose a customer.

Slow pages often result in viewers ‘bouncing’ or leaving the site after accessing the home page. A two second time delay may result in 87% of viewers leaving the site. This has a massive impact on a business.

Find out from Google what your page speed is, and pick up any suggestions they have to offer on improving your site’s downloading time.

Be bold with your calls to action

Calls to action show viewers how to subscribe, join a forum or make a purchase. These buttons are often clearly and simply labeled. Use bright website color schemes or strong contrasts to highlight your buttons. Pick colors carefully, depending on the message you want to give your user (reliability, intelligence, urgency).

When labeling your call to action, use words that encourage action. Focus on encouraging your user to identify emotionally. Words such as ‘Join Now’ encourage belonging to a forum. They also give a sense of time, which prompts the user to join ‘now’ and not later.

Keep your call to action message direct and precise. Showing customers how to subscribe and offering a prompt such as a good deal or free download can also encourage customer participation.

Keeping space

Keeping your website uncluttered will give your user an easy and relaxed experience. A cluttered, chaotic site is often difficult to negotiate.

Make sure your content, images, and icons all have breathing space. This will give flow to your unique website. Group together all connected data to keep your site clean and easy to understand, and connect your pages through consistent color, font, and style.

Contact details

If you want your users to engage or get in touch with you, make sure your contact details are easy to reach. Add all the necessary means of communication (such as phone, address or email).

Social media links

Your users may find out about your product via your website, but they often engage via social media. Include links to your social media pages so that your users are able to find you, engage with you, and follow your latest posts.

All businesses should have a social media page in order to engage clients, show new updates and keep in contact with potential customers.

Include a search field

When your user comes to your site and wishes to make a quick purchase, or has a question, search tools vital. If you have a great deal of information on your site, and precise details are hard to access, customers may use the search information to access the data they need. This will give quick and easy answers, prevent frustration, and keep your user on your site.

Frustrated users will go to your competition. To make your website quick and efficient (particularly if you have a lot of information) make your search bar easy to find.

Fix your broken links or install a custom 404 page

If your website has broken links, these may result in users leaving your site. This is because they find a ‘dead’ page, which cannot take them where they want to go.

404 pages are like blind alleys that block access to your site. Identify your broken links by checking your website in Google’s webmaster tools.

Redirect your old page to a new URL with a similar topic.

Request that your old URL is removed from search engines.

You can design a custom 404 page, taking users to your main site, offering up good deals and explaining your brand. Show your viewers new products, special offers, and top deals.

Use humor and apologize to your viewers for the broken links. You could also offer an apology on your custom page, give users the option to access a great deal, or offer a voucher or free delivery on a product.

Summary

Giving your viewers an excellent online experience will engage viewers, converting them into clients.

Use these helpful tips to get the best from your website and give your viewers a worthwhile online experience.