Simple is Better

No truer words than these can be spoken when designing a Web site: “Keep it simple, stupid.” Unfortunately, these words seem to fly in the face of Internet convention. Somehow, somewhere along the way, the standard mantra for Web sites came to be “The flashier, the better.” Web design seemed to be all about wild colors, intricate graphics, fade-outs, animation, streaming video, multimedia, buttons, links, pop-up windows, marching banners, dancing babies.

This could be because the first Web designers were technical wizards, not artists. They were ruled by the Wow Factor more than by basic rules of design. The result, too often, was a hodgepodge of flash and dash –along with slow-loading, unwieldy Web pages.

That wizardry may have looked great on an in-house network and a doublewide monitor, but on a standard 15-inch monitor via a dial-up modem? Internet surfers are not known for their patience, and a million other Web sites are just a click away. Even today, fewer than ten percent of households in the United States have a high-speed broadband connection to the Internet. In all likelihood, most of the visitors you are trying to attract to your Web site have a 56-Kbps modem and no patience to wait for your graphics to load.

Nor, believe it or not, do most Web visitors want to spend any time figuring out what your site is about and how to get from point A to point B within the site. The design has to make sense and the organization of the site has to be immediately apparent to get visitors to stick around and navigate through your pages.

Another outside factor to consider in designing Web sites and becoming more of a factor in the coming years is the wireless Internet connection via handhelds, cell phones and other ubiquitous devices with tiny screens and keyboards. What will your Web page look like on a one- or two- inch screen?

The overriding rule of Web design today has to be keeping it simple, concise and easy to understand. This does not mean Web design has to be plain vanilla. Your site can certainly be visually appealing - even exciting - without overdoing the graphics. Call it the minimalist approach.

Minimalism was a movement in art and music in the 1960s that emphasized simplicity of form and a literal, objective approach. It eliminated non-essential elements and focused on the object as object. It’s a philosophy that can be successfully adapted to Web design.

Good Web design, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. The beholder of your site (your audience) has a significant bearing on your design approach. Will your audience consist of casual users just browsing for information? You may want your approach to be more like a consumer magazine with a mixture of compelling text and graphics to entice readers inside. Or will your typical visitor be more of an expert on a mission? In this case, you want your site design to be direct and to get to the point quickly, as an academic journal might.

But certain design principles apply universally, no matter who your audience is. Whether you do it yourself or hire a designer, it will pay to review these principles:

In all things, moderation. A Web site’s graphic elements determine the look and feel of the site. They are perhaps the single most important players in determining that instant decision the visitor makes upon entering a site: Do I stay or move on? The look of the page must be enticing to the visitor, but it must also be instantly informative. Does the page look good? Does it have some sense of order? These questions are answered with the proper mix of graphics and text. The temptation to deploy lots of zippy graphics is hard to resist, but be judicious in choosing graphic elements - photos, maps, diagrams, illustrations -so they complement the text and don’t slow everything down. Think useful, not just cool, when selecting graphics. One simple graphic element can have more impact than a page full of them, anyway. Also, consider giving visitors an out

if they don’t want to mess with graphics at all. Many sites, for example, provide a text-only option.

Do you read me? There are thousands of fonts to choose from these days. Some are really creative and fun, but when you put more than two letters together, can you actually read what they say? Choose your fonts carefully. Stick with one or two and make sure they are legible on a small screen. The most important goal of your Web site, presumably, is to convey information, not to make your visitors cross-eyed wading through a paragraph of funky type, as cool as it may look.

White space increases readership. It’s a long-standing joke among publication designers, but it’s based in truth. The eyes need a break from solid content, whether it’s text or graphics. It applies to the computer screen as much as it does to the printed page. Don’t think you have to fill every square inch of the computer screen. People are overwhelmed by too much content thrown at them all at once. It needs to be broken up, cleanly organized, and separated by white space.

Above all, consistency is key. You may already have spent money to create a certain image for your business. You probably have a logo, letterhead, business cards and a brochure that adhere to that style. Don’t throw it all away on your Web site. Your site is an extension of your business and should have the same look as the rest of your company’s image. Use the same basic fonts, logos and color scheme of your printed materials to create a unifying design. You don’t want to confuse your customers with a whole new look on the Web site. Maintain that consistency throughout the Web site. Each page of the site must look like it belongs with the rest.

The beauty of the Web is its access to vast amounts of information, but finding the specific information you want can be a complex task. The more each Web site can do to simplify information searches, the more effective the Internet will be for all of us. Keeping it simple is the key to designing a useful, usable Web site.

Susan Holly is a freelance writer based on Sanibel.