How Does Design Enhance My Message?–
Tools and Principles Applied to Web Design (Part 5)
Let’s finish up by talking about web design. There are two reasons to do this. First, it’s fun. Who doesn’t like the Internet, right? How did we ever get along without it? It’s the yellow pages, the library, the post office and the world’s greatest time waster all rolled into one. The other reason we need to think about it is you have to. Like it or not, the Internet has become ubiquitous. It seems like everyone’s job these days is to keep up with the web’s changing and increasing capabilities.
Web Design and Print Design are Different Animals
It’s tempting to look at internet design as if it were print design. Tempting and wrong. While any given screen shot may look like a page and share certain features with page layout, there are so many differences it’s a huge mistake to think if you know one, you know the other. What you’re looking at is absolutely not a piece of paper. Depending upon what type of computer you’re using, which internet browser, the preferences your computer defaults to or preferences you’ve chosen yourself and the size and shape of your monitor, what you’re seeing on your computer may look very, very different on someone else’s. Even the colors can change. This isn’t ink on paper, it’s light. As a marketer, I’ve lost a great deal of control over my message the moment it moves from print to the web. In print I made all the choices except interpretation. Online, I’m sharing choices with my audience. But the control I loose is compensated for by a massive gain in investment.
In a print ad, you have to stretch for audience investment. Remember the Fed Ex logo, and the negative space arrow? When you saw that for the first time, when you got that idea, you made an investment. Your brain did some work, you were an active participant, there was interactivity. Web design is all about interactivity. If you can make your web design tempting, easy and fun, your audience is going to use it, and that active use is going to lodge it in their brain in ways a print image just can’t.
Web design can be difficult to talk about, because it’s new territory compared to print. New aspects are always been invented, and we haven’t entirely defined a shared set of terms to analyze it. The elements and principles we talked about are still there, but in a medium where you don’t totally control things like font and color, they’re a lot more fluid. You still want to shape your visual message in the best way possible, but there are new problems and opportunities that are going to take precedence.
How easy is your website to use? Is it intuitive? Does it share features with other websites your audience might already be familiar with?
You need to place a lot of importance on content. You don’t know for sure if a user will even go to a given section of your site.
Hierarchy isn’t just about where the eye is drawn on a page, it’s about what pathways are the most enticing. You’ll have to give a lot more attention to what the overall user experience is like. How does it feel to navigate your website? The very fact that we’re inclined to use active verbs like ‘navigate’ and ‘surf’ tells you how primary the importance of the experience will be. You ‘visit’ a website. When was the last time you ‘visited’ a print ad?
How can we use the tools of visual communication to enhance the user’s experience, given that we now share control? How might you use contrast, balance, and mass on a web page to try to influence the choices your audience is going to make about where they go on the site?
What’s Wrong with this Picture?
(Click on the window above for a larger view.)
Here’s a web page I’m not thrilled with. Take a look at the middle right where the two logos are. That’s a bad sign right off the bat.
But look at those two logos and tell me which one seems more inviting. Okay, why would a person come to this page? There are a number of possibilities, but I came here looking to pay my bill. Now certainly, the designer knew people would come to this page looking to do that. Look at this page and tell me what to click on. Where does the graphic design lead your eye? What’s most important here? How do I find what I’m looking for? How many people visiting this website do you think know what the word ‘transmission’ means in this context? Does the size of that segment of the audience really merit the prime place the designer has given it on this page? What else might you put there to make the sight more user friendly? If the over all message you communicate is “I don’t really care that much if you can use this site”, that’s not good, right?
What’s Right with this One?
(Click on the window above for a larger view.)
Okay, here’s the Banner Health web site. Good, bad or ugly? What do you think?
• What might you want to know that would lead you to this site?
• Once you’re there, can you find what you need?
• How does it make you feel about Banner Health?
The answers you came up with about the Banner Health Care Website design is exactly what I hope I’ve empowered you to do in the future. Everyone alive today is a passive consumer of graphic design. We’ve begun the process of turning you into an educated, aware consumer of graphic design in this series.
We’ve gone over the most basic aspects of how graphic design works; the elements and principles of design. You’ve learned how to talk about Graphic Design using a set of terms that have agreed upon meanings in the world of visual communication. That puts you in a position to offer more than a gut feeling when in the course of your work, you’re presented with graphic design possibilities. Now that you are an educated consumer, you can provide informed feedback, a skill you now bring to the table in shaping the messages you deliver.
Cheers,
Linda E.
Please feel free to contact me about this or any of your marketing communications issues.
Review the Series
You can review any of the articles in this series by using the following links:
Part 1:
How Does Design Enhance my Message?
Part 2:
The Principles of Design
Part 3:
The Tools and Principles of Design Applied to Identity
Part 4:
The Tools and Principles of Design Applied to Page Layout
Part 5:
The Tools and Principles of Design Applied to Web Design
Enrico Design can help you get your message to your target audience with impact and memorability in print and on the web. Whatever your organizational goals, we keep you top-of-mind with your customers and prospects. Visit www.enricodesign.com, call 781-631-2520 or contact us by e-mail.
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