Good Web designing: What one means by “Good”?

Web Design is all about vision; it’s an art of transforming conceptual ideas into a creation of digital platform through which one portrays its brand image and delivers business messages across to their viewers.

A Good Web design along with the transformation of a business idea should result into gratifying user experience which needs to take into consideration following elements:

1. Information Flow: Placement of information is of utmost importance in designing a website as it often establishes user’s perspective. According to Jakob Nielsen’s studies, Users don’t read, they scan picking out individual words and sentences. As a result, a web page design should encompass important keywords, significant sub-headings, and bulleted lists instead of plain text where appropriate.
2. Usability: Usability is all about making web sites that are easy to use and work well for people. According to Krug’s first law of usability, the web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory. It’s all about making users comfortable on your website.  This includes easy and clear site navigation.If the navigation structure is not instantly recognizable, then it becomes harder for users to browse through pages of your website which leads to user frustration hence resulting in decreased user productivity. This reaction puts off a user instantaneously which in turn is a major downfall to trust and brand image of the business.
3. Simplicity: Simplicity in web design in a skill of managing minimum information at the same time conveying clearly company’s key message. It is an ease with which one can locate for information for which a user is on that site. Simple design doesn’t necessarily mean minimal. It just means careful planning and conscious thought process needs to be there to remove all un-necessary cluttering of information which includes elements of design and code.
4. Typography: Typography is one of the basic and important elements needed to create good web design. Good typography helps in maintaining visual hierarchy which helps reader to scan through the page in accordance to the level of importance of content and pictures. Its helps to convey more important messages clearly to grab user’s attention direct to the page where needed.
5. Whitespace: The term simply refers to negative or empty space on a page which is not covered by any piece of graphics on it. Despite its name, it doesn’t necessarily have to be white.Whitespace is often used to create a balance and a feeling of elegance and beauty in a layout which gives some breathing space to the content on the web page. It helps user to navigate through the page with ease and clarity and focus on key terms.
6. Grid Based Approach:The concept of grid-based design is related to visual and structural balance of the layout, which helps to enhance the visual experience of users. Grid based design gives your layout a uniform spacing with well structured and consistent look. It improves readability making a page’s content to be absorbed in more efficient manner.To know more about Grid based design approach, here are few resources which will help you learn bit more about it:

• Five simple steps to designing grid systems: Mark Boulton
• Grid Based Layout: Welie
• The Grid based Web Design: Chris Brauckmuller
• Gridding the 960 – Cameron Moll
• Vertical Grids – Position is Everything
• Grid-Based Design 101 – Most Inspired
• Grid-Based Design: Six Creative Column Techniques – Smashing Magazine