Audio Visual Junkie

9 Essential principles for good web design

Having studied UI design for my Masters degree, I never realized how important design principles were until I started applying them into my work. Principles such as guiding the eye, whitespace, usability, and typography all have a very important role to play in every design project. So, I am happy that I ran into this article over at PSDTuts.com that outlines and provides illustrations for 9 principles of good web design. These are general principles which, back in the day, we were taught to apply in print design:

  1. Precedence (Guiding the Eye)
  2. Spacing
  3. Navigation
  4. Design to Build
  5. Typography
  6. Usability
  7. Alignment
  8. Clarity (Sharpness)
  9. Consistency

You can view the full article to read more about each item, but I’d like to draw special attention to the following:

  1. Design to Build
  2. Usability
  3. Clarity (Sharpness)

While the other six items apply to design in general, these three items are the ones that are particular to web design. Not only that, these items are probably the ones that I seems to be taken for granted quite often.

There are a lot of talented designers out there, designers who can create mind-blowing stuff with their seemingly unlimited imagination. However, the ones who do deserve to stay in the web design business are the ones who can adhere to these simple principles because the web, unlike a drawing or a painting, is a living, breathing piece of art.


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