Thoughts on Web Design
October 21, 2013I like to pretend I know something about web design and I’ve made it a big focus in the past 6 months or so. I’ve kept steady on Hack Design, read Universal Principles of Design and The Design of Everyday Things. Before I just looked at cool techniques or overall trends, but I’ve tried to think about styles I like recently as well as overall good practices. What I’ve come up with isn’t new, but I think it’s a good beginner’s guide:
- big fonts help a user read
- don’t force a font-size
- have a maximum line width, preferably 50-60 characters or so
- change sizing and spacing based on the window size, not on the device
- headings that are associated with content, for example, an excerpt being close to a heading by decreasing the bottom margin on the heading (there are a lot of other ways, and this grouping applies to many parts of design)
- don’t require hover to reveal more information (touch screens are only getting bigger)
- understand and use (and break) the “F” pattern of webpage reading
- small paragraphs and concise text
And here’s my personal preferences for things I work in:
- thin fonts
- light, subtle backgrounds (versus a flat color – even if most people don’t notice it’s not a flat color)
- big, bold images
- integrated media – images and video
- interesting and readable fonts
- not having sliding menus or hamburger buttons – who came up with that name and icon’s meaning anyway?
- simplicity
- plenty of negative space
- “almost flat” design – having small, subtle shadows for things like buttons or modals versus eliminating them completely
