This is the big question.........

A good website can be a subjective thing; everyone has their likes, dislikes, preferences and personal irritations. This is as true on the Internet as it is in everyday life. All too often though we get caught up in the visual look, to the point where we neglect everything else that goes into building something that serves a purpose.

The problem with this is, a visually great site may not be “good” and a good website does not necessarily need to be visually attractive.

How can a website that does not appeal to me still be visually good looking?

It Needs To Have Purpose

It doesn’t matter what type of site you are looking at, in the end all websites need to serve a purpose. This could be a business critical purpose or an entertainment purpose. It could be to sell products online or to simply advertise the services your business offers. The fact remains that a website needs to fulfil a need to you, the user. If a website’s purpose is to present information, different considerations need to be taken into account other than the look, such as readability, layout and ease of navigation.

Content Is King

The first piece of this puzzle is content itself. You can build the best website in the world, but without content, the website rarely serves a purpose. Good content is a lot of work, more than most people realise.

Good content starts with relevant “rich” content. Think of this description like food. When something you eat is “rich” with flavours this makes it great, you feel like you are getting great value for money. Nobody likes to dig through boring bland food to get to all the good stuff. This can be said for a website. Make your content “rich” and relevant to the subject at hand.

With good content you need to be aware of how much is in each area. You can have too much information which will only put off the user. Not enough will leave them wanting more and searching elsewhere. It needs to be able to be presented to the user in easy manageable sections.

Content can also come in many different forms. It may be

• normal text;
• photographs and illustrations;
• portfolio of someone’s work;
• tables of data;
• In really complex cases the content could be the actual design and function of the website itself.

The end product is something that the user is looking for. It may take different forms for different purposes, but the importance of its presentation can never be understated.

Make It Look Good

There is much more to presentation than the website looks. There are many more aspects which make up presentation including:

• well thought out and logical structure;
• easy to find links;
• attractive but un-intrusive and business presence congruent graphics;
• graphical cues to guide the user and make the content easier to digest;
• attractive pictures to break up the blocks of text; and much more.

Presentation is a case by case basis. What may work for one business may not work at all for another business. This is where design skill is really needed, to be able to assess the Company, its needs and apply those in a way that best suits what you need from your website.

Pay Attention to The Small Details

Attention to detail is often one of those most over looked aspects in building a website. It is easy to concentrate on the large elements and features but forget the small details. However, in many cases it is these small details that may not even be noticeable, unless stated which can turn an average website in to a great website.

Keep It Balanced

The most important factor in building a good website above all is balance. This can be described as the balance between graphical elements, information, images and their interaction. Too much of one aspect, can easily over power the entire website. Balance and attention to detail can be described in the same manner. It is something that is not noticeable when it is correct, however when they are absent you can tell that something is wrong and/or missing.

The Final Product

A website is more than a mere sum of its parts. It is building something were each part works in co-operation with the others to produce something attractive, intuitive and most importantly serves the purpose it was intended for.

We know when we see a site we like, often what we do not realise is the thought, time and effort that has gone into achieving this. A great look is just the beginning of the process, it can be thought of as the tip of the iceberg.

Once you achieve the total package, the results are more valuable and longer lasting than something that only excels in one aspect.