Conforming can be cool

Web design is a balancing act - attracting potential customers to use and explore a site and keeping the client happy that the site you’re creating for them reflects their brand & is cutting edge.

So you can play around with images, layout & colours ’til the cows come home (there is plenty of inspring designs on sites such as css mania), but there are some things you just shouldn’t mess with:

Logo position

When a user arrives at your site they may have found you in various ways; maybe from a url inputted directly into the browser, from a search engine or through a link in another site. They will need to identify quickly if they are on the right web site & your logo needs to be positioned top left…don’t confuse a user by placing it anywhere else.

Navigation

Keep the main navigation at the top & left. Users need to be able to click around without putting too much thought into it.

Links

Keep them as easily recognisable links to help users along their path. Underlines, hovers & colours that contrast with other text in the site & is only used for text links.

Shopping/basket icon/link

Anything related to your online shop should be clear & ready for users to buy from your site. So top right for those basket & shopping related graphics & links please! Make sure they are obvious to make sure no sales are lost.

Search

don’t hide your search away, keep it in the top right area, or if it’s an important feature of your site, like Amazon, then make sure it’s highly visible. Amazon have theirs slap bang in the middle at the top.

None of this means you have to have a dull web site, you are just the learning curve of the user, taking away the need to figure out how things work. If you follow users expectations you gain their confidence & trust, proving your business to be reliable and credible.

Useful links

10 Principles Of Effective Web Design
Smashing Magazine - a good article on user centric design & why it’s good to stick with convention on certain things

The need for Web Standards
Jakob Neilson - Users expect 77% of the simpler Web design elements to behave in a certain way. Unfortunately, confusion reigns for many higher-level design issues.