Often times, actually many times you will run across a website that has bad flow. By flow my definition is: The consistency of the page and it’s layout especially the menu and its location relative to the rest of the pages. This flow issue always doesn’t consist just for the web but may be seen in print as well. Not having a flow technique for designing websites will definitely set you up for failure and confused, lost visitors. I will discuss the basic common techniques to keep from running into the bad design habits for flow and wonderful resources to use making it easier than ever.
The Menu
The navigation of a website must be consistent for visitors, new and old. Inconsistency will create confusion of how to navigate and go from page to page. Many times, I’ve sent clients to other websites for some type of information and they were in search for where the link was or how to navigate the site. I didn’t do this to display bad techniques of design from but actually for that information. Fortunately, it’s not a common issue but it only takes once to design a mess up this magnitude and as a result have lost visitors.
One example of an issue is creating a horizontal menu over the content.
Now that the visitor clicked to a sub-page, the menu moves as a vertical menu to the left of the page or still a horizontal menu but under the content.
This is a major flaw because usually once a visitor has realized the flow of navigation on your website, it’s lost forcing the reader to rechange the idea of your layout. Once the menu has been designed into a website layout, the element should continually be in that location regardless of the page the visitor is on. This may be invalid depending on how creative the website is, but this is usually a normal rule.
What’s Important
There is always a hierarchy of information that information on a page should be categorized in. For example, when you haven’t seen a friend in a while, after greeting them do you instantly go into basic recent information that could wait like how you just bought a nice pair of sunglasses? Or do you say, “Hey! Guess what? I just got married, got bought a new home or something to that purpose? It’s the same when you go to a website would you rather read about the company and/or its mission? Or would you rather see breaking news or new products or talk within the company? Well websites should always be designed the same way.
Even if the website is a static website with not much news going around (although there should be), the website should display the newest products, recent news, work from portfolio or any information that should be seen to the viewer first.
The Fix(es)
960 Grid System
The 960 Grid System is one of the most simplest yet innovative systems and techniques to designing a nice well balanced and portioned website. After designing on the base of the grid, after removing it, it is guaranteed to be equally spaced providing a clean visual spaced layout.
Allow White Space
When designing, people usually assume that leaving white space is a bad thing and all space needs to be used for the site to be efficient. This stands whether web or print. White space is your friend. Leaving “negative” white space allows the eye to browse and organize. If there is barely white space, the eye would be lost and it would take time to find where you stopped reading or pick up where you were. Not only is that the pro for white space but it gives the website a clean, professional and open appeal. Without it, the design would always become cluttered and over-filled with information. White space doesn’t only come with spacing between columns or divs but also between paragraphs and lines of text. But that’s a different article to be written. Just know that it’s important to implement white space into the design when creating a draft.
Final Words
Take our website as an example, was it hard to find our blog or even the article you’re reading and would it be hard to return back to this same article? If you were looking for our project proposal page or portfolio of work, would that also be difficult to find? I assume not because of the consistency of the design.
What’s your say?
If there are other ideas that should go into design while coming up with a concept and I’ve missed it, leave your say here as a comment. I’d love to check ‘em out.
I’ve already bookmark this article and will definitely refer this article to all my close friends and colleagues. Thanks for posting!