Design Issues to Consider
To understand websites properly and how they function, you must understand some basic principles of design.
Design goes beyond simple graphics and aesthetics, and into usability, accessibility and writing techniques.
Understanding Design Theory
Graphic design theories go far beyond which colors elicit which emotions. These theories, like the theories of
usability, are grounded in scientific research. The following are of an important nature when discussing graphic
design:
| Color theory |
The usage (and sometimes absence) of colours in differing combinations and
differing intensities. Certain colour combinations work well, others do not. |
| Balance |
Elements in any design should be equally positioned throughout the
page. |
| Repetition |
Repeating common elements throughout your website will create a sense of
continuity for the user. They will recognize, regardless of the page they're on, that they're on your
website. |
| Alignment |
Aligning items helps to organize web pages, and gives user a sense of ease.
Content and page elements flow much better, and more easily comprehended and remembered whenever strong
alignments are used. |
| Typography |
Contrast and concord is what we're aiming for here. Contrast is great; it
divides up elements on the page, and gives us something distinguishable and interesting to look at. But
make sure you use no more than 2 or 3 font types. Concord is simply using bold and italics and different
font sizes to achieve some distinction. Just be careful to avoid conflict, which is using fonts that are
similar but not exact; this is distracting and difficult to read. |
How do we measure up?
For example, the following graphic design considerations were taken for this website:
- Color
Orange and green are the primary colors on the site, with black text on a white background (for the most part). Color is
used sparingly so as not to overwhelm our visitors, and shades are used to create subtle differences in appearance.
- Balance
You may notice that this site centres itself across your browser window. This provides balance. Text is also laid out in a
fairly balanced manner.
- Repetition
Repeated elements on this site include the color orange, the navigation schemes, the 'breadcrumb' links along the top of each
page, the footer element, and the mouseover behaviours of the buttons.
- Alignment
Alignments on this site are meant to be strong and consistent. The content keeps the same left and right side alignments,
allowing for ease of scanning and consistency.
- Typography
There is only 1 font used in the text on this site; Verdana. This is controlled within a style sheet (except for
images, of course). Another font, 'Goldsmith Script, is used in the logo; it is considered a secondary font. Bolding,
italicizing, underlining and sizing are all used to provide concordance.
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