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What makes for good design on a website? Please post a link to any website you think has good design.
To get things started, I’m going to suggest the following website as one with good design:
Medium is a Web publishing platform for writers. It is kind of like a magazine. Some have described it as YouTube for writing. Others describe it as a blogging platform.
The focus of the platform is reading and writing and it is reflected in the design. Here are a couple features of the design that stand out:
1. Distraction-free reading. When you click through to an article on Medium, you’ll notice that the text is front and center: black text with a clean, readable serif typeface with no distracting sidebars.
2. Collaborative reading. When you sign up for a user account, you can highlight and annotate the text and share this with other readers. When reading, you can see how many people flagged particular passages and what they thought about it.
3. Social sharing. This is a common feature on blogging platforms, but it’s worth mentioning here. The only thing that stays in the margins of an article on Medium is the panel for social media sharing. Social media plays an enormous role in driving traffic to websites. Few Web users navigate directly to a website to browse around. They more often arrive via a search query or a link shared on a social media network (Facebook, Twitter).
That’s my pick. What’s yours?
This is a site which I refer to from time to time. It displays a calendar of all current and upcoming video game releases. The main page displays all the titles and you can click on a title to view more information about it. In the information section you can read an abstract and watch any posted trailers for the game as well as view information pertaining to its release, and supported platforms. The site offers a very clean netflix like style navigations presenting the information in a quick and efficient way.
From my recent discovery from a class, one website that I found has a good design overall is called the “Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.”
The website is well-organized with the adequate information that displayed to the viewers. It has the information which categorized under topics; thus, the navigation features were clearly showed and made easy accessibility for visitors. In addition to the visual hierarchies, the colors of the texts, background, and the overall theme had provided a “neutral contrasts” for viewers, as the background color was white, the overall theme was blue and texts were in either white in some topics and black in others. As well, for children, blue is one of the primary colors that was suggested to use in promoting their learning experience; and since the museum is designated as Children’s Museum, it was an excellent theme color that they used. The website is up to date, as they regularly renewing events happening at the museum. Furthermore, the photographs on the website they posted on the site had added a colorful bonus that made me, as a reader very interested in exploring what activities were done, how they were done and how children were involved during the activity. The web page had provided a search engine, which offers viewers to the opportunities to access the newspaper articles and events that they had done in the past.
If you are interested, you can visit the website at https://pittsburghkids.org
I think the most important design characteristic on a website is the organization of its information. Clear and concise information display is best for users and for a good website. Using overwhelming displays or information boxes could make users not want to visit the site, or become immensely frustrated when using it. Categorization is also key for a good website design; it allows users to navigate the site with ease. Colour, I think, is also a key design feature that makes for a good website. Using a bunch of overpowering colours like bright pinks and blues could make it hard to focus on the information on the website, and thus is not a good display element. There needs to be a balance in colour; for example, primary colours are great for primary level based teaching websites because these are colours the students are gaining knowledge of. However, designing a website with a black background and purple text is not a good design choice. These design elements speak to the accessibility features that make for a good website.
A website that I think is very well designed is the Walt Disney World website. There is a great balance of colours that eludes to the fact that this destination could easily live up to its name as the happiest place on earth. When you enter the website you are instantly faced with the option to plan your trip instead of having to search the website’s depths to find this feature. The organization of this website is also well designed because as you navigate through you can see how close the parks are to the hotels, what each parks has to offer (rides, restaurants, etc), and different promotions being offered at the time you are planning. As you scroll down the homepage, information is displayed for all the new features and lands included in Disney World so that if something sparks your interest you can click on it and immediately learn more. This website is also updated with every new addition to Disney World and offers someone who has not been yet to begin dreaming about it by just scrolling through the website.
Walt Disney World: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/en_CA/
These are some excellent picks for well-designed websites. You highlight a number of key features (colour, layout, clarity, ease-of-use). It seems like audience and intent are critical factors to consider.
A good design for any website starts with clear and presentable information that is attractive to the intended audience. Being intrigued by the information and its display is the key to grabbing the audiences attention and getting them to further explore the site. One website that i find captures the essence of a great design is Amazon.I am ashamed to admit I am on this site more often than not. Amazon, in my opinion, offers consumers efficiency, clarity and ease with the way its site is designed beginning with the home page. Its basic, clean cut design invites a multitude of buyers to purchase any one of the thousands of items at their disposal. Its different tabs in the drop down menu categorize the thousands of items for sale which is one of the ways to navigate your purchase. Another useful tool in the sites design is the search bar. I find this incredibly useful when looking for a specific item. These features aid in customer satisfaction and overall web design. The fact that customers do not have to go through different channels to finally end up on an item they want to purchase makes it all the better. Its design makes for everyday browsing and buying very easy and time efficient.
I am sure many people know about the wonders of Amazon but just incase here is the link to browse through yourself
I think that one of the characteristics of a good website is the overall organization of the website. Websites should be organized in a clear and concise manner in order to allow users to navigate through the site with ease. Not only will it be easy for users to use but the flow of information from creator to user would be more efficient. With the use of different tools such as tabs or videos users would be able to find information faster and easier. I also think that colour is an important characteristic as well. The more colourful the website the more inviting it would be. By using a universal colour scheme people from different backgrounds would be able to easily understand the flow of the website. One of the websites that demonstrates this is YouTube. The overall interface of the website is white with red buttons and black writing that stand out when you first look at it. YouTube also has a very easy to use navigational search bar which would allow you to find information on any topic through the use of video. Not only is this website efficient but it is easily accessible to everyone. This website offers translations into different languages as well as subtitles for videos who are not translated. Due to this more people are able to use the website. I feel like this website has also gained success due to use of social sharing. People are able to comment on each others post as well as share them amongst other social media platforms. YouTube is also constantly being updated with new features in order to increase the efficiency of the users. When looking on the homepage, videos are organized into categories such as Comedy, Trending or Documentary that allow you to pick specific topics without having to browse all the videos that have been uploaded. As someone who uses YouTube daily I believe that this is a website with an extremely great design!
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/
I think one of the characteristics of a good website is colour and functionality. The information is presented to the user in a way that is organized and well thought out.The use of the website contributes to the overall flow of the site. A website I really like the layout of is kahoot.com. This is something I used to teach with, it is basically an online quiz site, where you can either develop or access a quiz about a particular topic. I think sites are most effective when they allow you to interact with it on another mediums of technology, such as tablets, phones etc. I specifically like it because it is very interactive and the different icons allow you to make personalized changes to your quiz such as adding pictures, sounds videos etc. You can then broadcast your quiz to however many people using a simple 6 digit code, which they can access from phones, tablets or laptops. I also like this site because if you are having trouble using it there are many tutorials posted to help you troubleshoot your problems. Afterwards your quizzes are stored in the site for further use and can be posted to share wth others, which I find useful because you can spread your knowledge with others. This is one of my favourite websites which I have utilized in the corporate and the teaching world.
It is a lot of fun with super cool background music! Try it out!
I believe a vital characteristic of a website is DESIGN. Design encompasses a wide variety of characteristics like colour, proportion/scale, unity, balance, alignment, emphasis, etc. Furthermore, A well-designed website should have a good colour scheme, cohesive theme, interactive elements (picture slider, search bars, etc.) and cool graphics, pictures and videos.
Check out one of my favourite websites to see exactly what I’m talking about! (Sorry if you aren’t a huge fan of online shopping)
The website that I think has good design, albeit with some some flaws is the Lexicanum, a fan made website for the table top and computer game War Hammer 40k, War hammer fantasy, and war hammer 30k, it is modled after the Wiki engine. This website is broken down in to faction portals that a person can click on to learn more about the various races of the warhammr universe. The text is simple and easy to read, it does not hurt the eyes with a colored background, the site has hyper links within the the various pages that people can click on to take them to another page of information. The site is designed to be very user friendly with easy to read language, there are no pull down menus to crowd the site and the only one is the very first page which greet the viewer. the link is below just in case the tag does not work
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