A Crash Course in the basics of Web Design

By Jason Walsh


Getting users to view your website is one thing – keeping them there is another. Whether you're running a small blog or a corporate behemoth, your challenge is the same: getting those visitors to interact with your site and explore your content. This involves a little science, a lot of art and no small amount of luck – but with some help from the experts, we'll show you the best way to get started.

CHOOSING A LAYOUT
Yahoo is one of the top destinations on the web. It has seen continual, subtle development of its homepage, with an ever-increasing amount of information having to be dealt with. What was once a simple web directory became a search engine, email service and finally giant portal. Now it covers nearly every web service you can imagine; yet it remains surprisingly sleek.

The most recent step towards maintaining this look was a full makeover, with the site now offering a three-column design. A list of 'favourites' that act as categories are on the left, while a central column features the main content display and a right-hand column offers more peripheral information, including a list of the most popular searches and advertising.

The central concept is that the user is in control, and can add and remove the items that are of most interest. This strategy of user control, also used by the BBC, is increasingly popular with information-heavy sites, as it allows visitors to prune the available data to match their interests.

"When we were designing the new Yahoo homepage, design and usability were absolutely central to everything we did," explains a Yahoo designer.

Associated Link: More: A crash course in the basics of web design

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Source: usability-ed, 22 July 2010
 
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