Design principles and tactics are ever-changing. Trying to keep up with design trends can sometimes get in the way of usability. Without proper usability your appealing design means nothing, and without appealing design your great usability won’t get noticed. Incorporating both easy interactivity and appealing design is a must in web design.

Start Your Design Off Screen

Great web design should be looked at like architecture: Planning should be the first step in your process. Architects create layouts to account for placement of doors and windows before they begin construction. Develop the blueprints for your site before diving head first into it the coding. Doing this will give you time to account for all aspects of your site and give you time see what’s important and what’s possible. Nothing is worse than running into a problem while you’re halfway to your goal or having to go back and fix mistakes. Prevent this by simply planning.

Curb the Clutter

While you may want to provide as much information about your company on your website as possible, don’t sacrifice the look of it for that. Too much clutter will deter people from your site whereas negative space will guide users through it. The saying, “Less is more” applies to web design. minimalist designs are trending and will continue to do so because of the easy usability they offer.

Don’t Forget about Mobile

Mobile browsing has overtaken desktop browsing for the majority of web browsing activity. Statistically speaking, you’re most likely reading this blog on your phone right now. What does this mean? Your website should be optimized for mobile and desktop browsing. However, your mobile design and desktop design shouldn’t be the exact same. The biggest difference between web browsing and mobile browsing is screen size. With screen size being a big difference there are some things you should take into account when designing for mobile. You’ll most likely want to increase text size to increase legibility. Also, you’ll want downsize images and maybe even remove some from the mobile version to help with navigation.

A/B Testing

Current and upcoming trends can still be hard to grasp. Sometimes the best way to see if something is working is through comparison. A/B testing is a great way to see whether your sites design is working. Maybe you want to try out a new navigation bar on your website. A/B testing will compare your sites performance with and without the sidebar, giving you greater insight. This is also a great tool to use when dealing with clients. Sometimes clients may want you to add something to their website that is only going to create clutter and detract from the site, such as a sidebar. Having evidence to back up your recommendation can come in handy.