subject: Designing a Website that Looks Professional [print this page] Designing a Website that Looks Professional
Just as notes and melodies combine to create the soaring, sensual emotive majesty of a full symphonic orchestra - its elements joining to create the aural sensuality that inevitably touches mind, body and soul - so too should the elements making up the professional website.The orchestra's poetry, made up of knowledge, skill and ability, adds to the value of what it means to watch such cohesive beauty as it functions in reality; showcase to what professionalism and capacity can produce when the fundamentals fit to make something truly special. The website's ability to have that cohesive magic depends on the capability of the designer as the musician, creating and conducting and bringing the elements together to make the symphony of readability and ease of navigation, balance and class that which belongs to the professionally designed website.The point of any good performance is audience appreciation. To keep your target market coming back for more of your visual symphony, your content needs to express your intent and make clear the product or service you may be providing. Making sure your content is substantial and relevant and ensuring your visitor takes the most away from the experience of being on your site. And an experience it should be. Like a performance, your website should inspire in the viewer nothing but a deep and powerful need for more.Your site should be devoid of any distraction. This means that anything that could catch the eye of your audience and divert it away from the soaring upsurge that is the highlight and importance of what your site has on offer, could potentially mean your viewers exiting the concert hall, so to speak. All content that flashes, blinks or pops-up, should be used in extreme moderation. Grant your content alone the ability to capture attention and hold the audience in bliss to its very visual delight.An orchestra has exactly the amount of instruments intended for the desired effect and your website should be the same. Rely on the power of what you have to attract the right customer and avoid dissonance in the harmony of your site.Pepper your site with nuances of important information. Guide your guests with strategically placed notes that lead visitors, via links and tabs, to the most critical aspects in the magic that is your opus. Allow them ease of navigation as your visual symphony tells a story and gets them to where you know they want to be.Keep your content simple. Try not to add too much to the composition. You may find that the added notes, crotchets, quavers and melodies could assault rather than inspire; could hinder rather than provoke to action. Flooding your website with content also leads to the very present problem of slow load-time. Again, the performance success depends on the audience, and slow load-times contribute to numbers dwindling and potential clients leaving your site before they experience the ultimate crescendo of your intent.Your website's visual symphony is synonymous with how you carry out the elements that make it up. Your site should harbour a distinct theme and, at the same time, allow easy free-flow of information to the visitor, working in conjunction with your most important features and your site's ease of navigation. Mostly, though, let your content do the work and the sonata that is your website will continue to leave those who experience it, sensually inspired; appreciative of its power.
