Conventions In Web Design

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May 5th, 2010 by James

Web design conventions comprise the common and popular ways in which sites are laid out and structured. They are extremely important in helping visitors to use websites, because they allow previous experiences to be brought into play. This minimises any learning that would otherwise be required to use a site, and helps to give a ‘user-friendly’ feel.

Web development experts know that visitors have certain expectations on arriving at a site. Often, traditional elements of design are useful in a practical sense. For example, once a link has been clicked it may change its appearance in some way, perhaps turning from blue to purple. Those words which are underlined are expected to be links. A list of headings on the left of the page is assumed to be a navigation menu, while familiar phrases such as ‘contact us’ lead to pages where the visitor can be fairly sure in advance what information they will find there. The loading time of certain pages or files is generally expected to be conveniently quick, with some kind of progress monitor being displayed on screen.

Going against these conventions might be tempting for artistic reasons but unless any new arrangements are highlighted clearly enough for users to recognise them, the result is likely to be baffling. It might be better to start with the traditional elements of a site and tweak them creatively rather than throw them out altogether. At Click Consult we build our websites on firm foundations that recognise the importance of web marketing and design conventions.

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