This was going to happen sooner rather than later. Google algorithmic updates have all focused on helping visitors find high quality websites, and the latest update is a step in the same direction. This one is going to have a marked effect on the layout of the web page.  Google has acted on user’s complaints about difficulty in coming across content on a particular website if it is packed to the brim with advertisements and design elements.

Users aren’t too happy about scrolling down a webpage to look at the content that they are interested in seeing. For them, this is a waste of time and Google, in a bid to ensuring that website visitors are promised the best user experience design that allows them to find the actual content easily as soon as they land on the website, has come up with an update. According to this update, if a website doesn’t have sufficient amount of content "above the fold" on the website, its ranking might be affected.

What this means is that if the space "above the fold" is populated by a slew of ads, it does not make for very good user experience and this is what Google wants to make right. The phrase "above the fold" refers to the upper half of the web page, or to put it more specifically, that part of the web page that a user can easily access without scrolling.

Now, placing advertisements "above the fold" is a common occurrence on most websites, this is because a website owners’ prime concern is to make their sites more profitable, and ads placed in prominent positions encourage monetization. But, excessive placement of such ads means the real content of the website is difficult to find. This update will have no impact on those websites that place ads "above the fold" in normal amounts.  This is the kind of amount that does not push the website content "below the fold".

This update will only impact those websites that display so many ads "above the fold" that they push the content down, so much so that visitors will have to scroll the page in order to have a look at it. Google estimated that less than 1% of searches will be impacted by this change. If a website’s rankings have been affected by this change, webmasters can relook their layout and make the necessary changes on the necessary webpage to ensure that the content on the page can be found immediately. Any change made, will be automatically reflected in the results on the search page. But, it’s important to remember that any layout update or its reorder will take some time to reflect on the SERPs and is dependent on various factors including the amount of webpages updated and also the crawlability of the content.

So, a great idea would be to fashion a website that gives a lot of importance to user experience so that this update doesn’t affect your website’s rankings adversely. Good user experience results in better conversions and reduces bounce rates and this is reason enough to focus on it.

A word of advice – Google has made no bones about the fact that its focus of attention is always on ensuring a better experience for website visitors. So, instead of making changes to your website, whenever Google comes up with an update in its algorithm, it is always better to give due importance to enhancing the user experience of your website, as much as possible.

Successful web design is always emphatic in the message that it is trying to deliver through the use of various design elements.  The concept of ‘emphasis’ is in marked contrast to that of ‘unity’ another important concept that contributes towards custom web design success. While the former involves designers ensures that a particular web design element stands out and draws the attention of viewers, the latter asks designers to ensure that all elements used for website design, come together to make an impression on the viewer.

Here we are going to talk about how you can emphasize certain elements of website design. Let’s take a look at 4 ways that will help make this possible.

The Art of Proper Placement

When you view a website what is the portion of the website that you look at first? Typically, it’s the center of the composition. So, what this means is that if you want to provide emphasis, you must place the design element right at the center of the layout. This is where it has the strongest possible chance of getting noticed. But, you could also think about using the top left corner of the web page to provide emphasis. This is yet another significant portion of the web page that garners a lot of attention.

Maintain Proper Flow

The idea behind maintaining a continuing flow with respect to design elements is to ensure that a viewer’s eyes move in one direction alone. At the end of this visual path that you have determined for the viewer, you can place the dominant feature. Such features will definitely catch the viewer’s eye and create a marked impression. Take for example the use of the common ‘arrow’ when you place an object at the end of the arrow, this object assumes tremendous importance.

Emphasis through Isolation

Proximity helps create unity, while isolation provides emphasis. Think of the Sahara with its endless sand dunes and an oasis in the middle of these sand dunes. Doesn’t the oasis create an impact? Well, the same brand of thinking works for website design as well. If you place an element in isolation, it is bound to stand out.  Your eyes and anybody else’s for that matter will be attracted to a design element that is surrounded by plenty of white space.

Contrast always comes to the rescue

Think about it, big and small, dark and bright, two colors that lie at the opposite ends of the color wheel etc. have helped provide emphasis, since time immemorial. The art of using two dramatically different graphic elements in a layout is bound to create an impression - More the difference, greater the element’s capacity to stand out. Disparate graphic elements are commonly used by web designers to provide emphasis.

These are just four ways of providing emphasis, and there are plenty more. It’s not absolutely necessary for you to follow these pointers for providing emphasis. All we have done is offer the most commonly used ways and the most easily incorporated of ideas that help provide emphasis. When it’s a matter of emphasis, you can get as creative as you like.

The choice of the base color of any website is dependent on the purpose of the website. At times, the choice of the color might not entirely be in your hands, as a designer; the colors used in the web design might be dependent on the existing marketing collaterals of the company and also its logo. There are a number of clients who prefer choosing their colors for the design of their website; and rightly or wrongly, you will have to go along with it.

But, even if you have to go along with the color choice of the website owners, you can still ensure that you choose a color scheme that fits the needs and requirements of the website and its purpose. The standard color schemes that you can choose to use include, monochromatic, analogous, complementary, split complementary, triadic and double complementary.

Let’s take a look at each of these schemes in terms of their use in web design.

Monochromatic Color Scheme

A monochromatic color scheme involves the use of just one single base color in the various pages of the site. Of course, designers are able to use the various tints and shade of that color. You can choose to use different monochromatic color schemes for different pages of the site. There are some designers who take this route through the intuitive use of RGBA transparency. More importantly, you can choose to use a monochromatic design for one page, while in another you can go for analogous design. The use of multiple color schemes improves the visual appeal of your site and helps make it more engaging.

Analogous Color Scheme

You have a color wheel and there are colors adjacent to each other on that wheel. If you use colors lying adjacent to each other on that color wheel, you will be using the analogous color scheme. The idea is to use a large slice of the colors on the wheel and make them a part of the website’s design. The correct use of the analogous color scheme deepens the symbolism of the site and brings it out in all its glory.

Complementary Color Scheme

Choosing colors that are placed opposite each other in the color wheel, means you have chosen to go for a complementary color scheme. It gives rise to a unique combination of colors that if used wisely, will provide an interesting look and a solid foundation for the website design.  This doesn’t mean that such a color scheme must be bold; designers can tone it down so that the colors look more natural. Astute website designers couple complementary color schemes with artistic texture in order to create better visual impact.

Split Complementary, triadic and double complementary Color Schemes

As the names of these color schemes rightly suggests, these are just variations of the complementary scheme. If you want to use split complementary color scheme, you will need to choose two colors that lie adjacent to the complement of your chosen base color.  If you are after a triadic color scheme, it involves you choosing colors that are equally placed on the color wheel. This can easily be achieved if you choose colors that are placed one notch more on each side, with respect to the split complement.

Double complementary color scheme is just combining one complementary scheme with another one.

These are the standard color schemes and there are variants of the standard schemes that designers can also use. But, most designers are perfectly happy with the use of standards color schemes, as they make for a more focused approach towards website designing.

Designers would love it if they had to design a brand purely in the aesthetic sense and not the commercial sense. But, the problem is that we are not living in a “perfect world”, and all brands are created with a certain purpose in mind. The very nature of the brand makes it an entity that is driven by pure commercialism. The brand needs to conform to the objectives of the company and if it doesn’t then it is deemed to be unsuccessful. Today, brands are a crucial part of the marketing mix of companies and empower their efforts to gain wider acceptance amongst their target audience. One could define branding as a place where both the marketing considerations of the company and its graphic design meet.

The application of design principles to branding efforts is one of the ways that designers are able to build a high performance brand right from scratch. There are various tools and designing concepts that can be used to ensure that the awareness of the brand, its recall and its impression are of a very high caliber and improve the businesses reach by a very long way.

Impressive looking logo is crucial

Your brand needs a logo. A brand without a logo is like a fish out of water. Look at the most successful businesses out there, behind each successful business is a successful logo. Usually, the logo design should begin right when the company name is being designed; this means when the seeds of the business/organization/ company are first sown, work should begin on the logo. A logo should exude confidence and must look balanced. It must be the perfect visual representation of the company, nothing more and definitely, nothing less.

Typography Consistency

An often ignored, but an equally important part of branding is consistent typography. Designers must be careful with respect to the selection of the font size and style. It’s of paramount importance that the selection of the typography must be such that it can be used across all mediums and related marketing collaterals. A complete branding experience is a product of diligent efforts and an important determinant of this diligence is typographical consistency.

Selection and Definition of Colors

You not only need to choose the right colors, but you also need to define them in the appropriate manner. Careful palette selection and the subsequent definition of the color will ensure that there are a number of suitable color options to choose from, for the brand across various media.

Branding

Finally when the aesthetics are complete, the brand needs to be introduced to the real world by using it in various marketing collaterals. The brand needs to be successfully applied to business cards, web design, company brochures etc. The success or failure of the brand can only be determined when it is applied to specific marketing collaterals.

Universal web design is the kind of design that meets the needs and requirements of the widest possible audience. The principles of website designing that help give shape to universal web design include:
 

• Ensuring that it can be used by people with diverse abilities.
   
• Its needs to be able to accommodate a varied amount of individual preferences.
   
• The focus must be on simplicity and intuitiveness.
   
• It must be able to deliver pertinent information in a highly effective manner.
   
• It must tolerate a certain amount of error.
   
• It must require very little physical or mental effort on the part of the user to understand it and optimize its use.
   
• The design should be able to meet all contextual requirements of the user.

But sometimes even the best intentioned website designers can ignore the key aspects that can make or break universal website design. These are the kind of mistakes that should never be made as website visitors won’t be able to ignore them.

Let’s take a look at some of these mistakes.

Problem with Readability

If the textual content is not easily readable, the effectiveness of the website’s design goes down a few notches. This means that website visitors will have to strain themselves in order to read the content, which goes against the principles of universal website design. Some of the mistakes that make the content difficult to read include, small text size, using inappropriate font style, and improper color contrast. Other problems that can equally affect readability of text include are not focusing on user friendly headings and not giving enough importance to ample line or paragraph spacing.

Unconventional Looking Text Links

When it comes to text links, going by convention is the key. Otherwise, website visitors will find it difficult to determine a text link. The long standing convention in web browsing is that a hyperlinked text must have an underline. There are some smart designers who think it’s a good idea to not adhere to this convention and try and define a link a little differently, by highlighting it with a marked color contrast or using a darker color from the surrounding text. But, the whole idea behind underling a hyperlink is to help website visitors easily distinguish it. It’s a familiar differentiating factor that website visitors have come to expect and if they don’t find such links, they are going to be confused. A website design that confuses a visitor can never be considered universal.

A lot of visual noise

Have you heard a noise that doesn’t make a sound? No, this isn’t a joke, there is something called a visual noise that makes a website unappealing, unusable and inaccessible. If the website design looks scattered all over the place, it means that there is a lot of visual noise that is interfering with the website visitor’s ability to make sense of the website design. If the website has no focal point and a complete lack of visual hierarchy, the user will be left scrambling for answers on the website. A website’s design should be a coming together of diverse design elements that make perfect sense. If these design elements appear crammed together in the layout, the design looks disjointed and doesn’t appear to make much sense. The result is the kind of visual noise that we can do well without.

These three mistakes can cost universal web design big time, and a web design company must ensure that it doesn’t commit these cardinal mistakes. If they are avoided, the result is a universal web design; but if they are committed, the result is a non performing web design. The equation is very simple.