The days are long gone when flashing banners, cheesey animations, annoying scrolls of text and leaping pop-ups were the measure of a well designed web page. Web surfers are now much more discerning. They will only stay on a page that is appealing with its professional graphics and clean, intuitive design. This article examines the way web design has changed and what you now need to do to keep your visitors.
Someone wise once said that you cant judge a book by its cover, but Im guessing this was before the world wide web changed the way everyone absorbed information.The fact of the matter is, these days, even in a hard cover bookshop, books with boring covers will never even get picked up. The competition is so fierce, the colours and design of book covers so clever, that unless a cover stands out from the crowd, a book doesnt stand a chance of being purchased.
Now, you can multiply this scenario by hundreds of thousands of times if you are talking about web pages. The same principle applies. Unless a web page is attractive enough, it wont get a second glance. Web surfers will be in and clicked out in the blink of an eye. Design and colours all contribute to how a web page presents itself to its visitors. There once was a time where web pages were thought to require every bell and whistle available. This was in the early days of the web when everyone was trying to prove themselves; when flashing banners were thought to be the way to go (theyre not now, if they ever were), where cutesy little animations were thought to be a brilliant addition to a web site.
Well, there was a predictable backlash against these kaleidoscopic horror web pages of the early days, but, surprisingly you still see a few of them around usually done by newbies. Fact is, the pendulum has now swung the other way. Clean, professional and precise is now the best approach for a web site. You dont offer too many distractions on your site because you want your visitors to be given little choice but to go to an order button, if youre selling, or a subscribe button, if you are recruiting. The current thinking is that you need to have a professional web page, with a professional design. All too easy to say, much harder to do. Most design programs these days have more buttons than a video parlour and take many hours to learn. Universities and colleges even run lengthy study courses on how to use some of the major design programs because they are so complicated.
But, there is an answer, if you are seeking good web design, but dont want to pay a professional designer, nor study for months. There are now many good professionally designed graphics packs that you can purchase. There are even good royalty-free photographs that you can either purchase, or be given, on the web. Using such packs is the way to go because, if you choose wisely you will find some great professional graphics, clip art and photographs that will certainly give your web pages that professional spark that will make them stand head and shoulders above many others.
Having a collection of these packs is definitely the way to go. You store them on your hard drive and they become a valuable resource that you can go back to, again and again, picking and choosing the right graphics for whatever web design purpose you have in mind.