Creating a good web design involves careful planning.  It’s always good to ask practical questions at the outset like: Who is the web site for? Who will the typical visitor be? What will the visitor want to see on the website? and how are they likely to act once they are on the website?

 Research into human psychology has confirmed that emotions are critical to drive reaction. So it make sense to target the emotional side of your visitors as it will give better results than one that tries to balance the two.  When the emotions are implemented into the design ethos, the visuals will follow naturally. If the visuals make the visitor feel good, it pushes all the right buttons, outlining the benefits they will gain from buying, using, or applying a particular service.  These features of the service are great but the benefits are what will drive the emotions and make people react. If the emotional elements of good web design are not in place it will be a good website but not a great one. 

Usability Web Design

It’s essential to have good usability web design – that means putting a site together in such a way that there is no confusion, no surprises and no irritation, when something happens that should not have happened. Basically, it’s a well thought out design and navigation fused in one.

Top tips

• The home page should be imbued with enthusiasm, and feature bold benefits, honest but not over hyped.  Pages that are lacklustre and boring will not hold attention. Good usability web design demands riveting, interesting and exciting worlds on every page that motivates, captivates and inspires.

• The web design should be primarily about the company, telling visitors all about the features of the company and how it operates and tell visitors what you can do for them by listing the benefits of doing business with them.

• Avoid surprise links – they’re irritating and not always welcomed.

Essential web software programmes

Flash: (video and animation software)

Adope Photoshop: (the industry standard in digital image editing with advanced tools used by graphic designers, photographers and other graphic professionals)

Adobe Illustrator: (creative software providing precision and power with sophisticated drawing tools, expressive natural brushes)

Adobe Dreamweaver: (offers web designers, developers and graphic designers the freedom and versatility to manipulate pixel-level designs)

Fireworks: (powerful editing features including lightening and darkening tools, selection and rescaling tools and the ability to slice and crop designs; drawing and painting tools, such as shapes, lines, brushes, pens)

Quark: (delivers superior page-layout and design power through an intuitive interface, print, web and flash authoring tools and designer-driven typography)

InDesign: (contains tools and menu commands for creating, manipulating and transforming shapes.  Particularly used when working with text and graphic frames as well as backgrounds and lines)