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Card UI Design: Tips and Fundamentals

Card UI Design

With an increase in access to the internet through mobile devices, designers have been focusing more on creating designs that render well on both desktops and mobile devices. People have switched to the use of multiple screens, and as designers, we need to accommodate the varying device usage of our visitors. The card layout is one such element. Cards are box containers that hold pieces of information. Recently, this simple card UI design component became an essential part of the web and mobile design, and thus needs to be done right to offer a rich user experience. Cards are everywhere – from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to eCommerce stores like Amazon. Card layout has rapidly gained popularity. In this article, we will review the concept of cards, understand its fundamentals, and share some practical tips for designers.

What Are Cards?

Cards are a UI component containing content and actions about a single subject. Cards can contain several different elements, but they all should be about a single topic. The logic behind this is to avoid long texts and render more scannable content. Even though users might not be familiar with a card’s concept from a design point of view, they instantly know how to use them since they are similar to physical cards.

Popularity of Card UI Design

Card UI design is popular for many reasons:

  • Solves navigation problems
  • Intuitive
  • Easily scannable
  • Offers multiple uses
  • Effective and user friendly

A typical card layout features the following elements:

  • Imagery – Images or videos that scale to fit the top area of a container.
  • Title – Primary heading
  • Summary – A brief synopsis of the unit.
  • Actions (optional) – Actions associated with the unit.

Fundamentals of a Good Card UI Design

Well-designed cards make it easier for users to scan the available information. Here are the fundamental principles of good card design:

  • Single-subject: Each card must represent one idea, topic, or product. A card covering multiple ideas or topics can confuse a user and hence is not recommended.
  • Efficient: Avoid overloading cards with extra information or actions. Each card should contain only essential information and actions.
  • Meaningful: Each card should contain information that helps users make a decision.
  • Clear: The layout of a card affects how it is perceived. Each card is made up of content blocks (elements like text and images). Content blocks should be placed on a card in a way that clearly indicates hierarchy.
  • Independent: A card should stand alone, without relying on other cards for context. A card cannot divide into multiple cards.
  • Responsive: Since the website and apps are accessed on different screen sizes, the cards should be responsive and must resize to fit into the available space.

Tips For Card UI Design

Use It For a Purpose

While cards are an excellent UI element, don’t use them just to make your website or app more presentable. Use it for its real purpose i.e., to organize varying types and sizes of content elements. A card layout works best when you have multiple content types like images, texts, CTA buttons, etc. When you have content types of variable length, and there is some interaction like a link, like and share buttons, etc.

Don’t Complicate – Keep it Simple

As stated earlier, stick to one thought per card. You can use multiple elements like images, text, links, buttons, etc. However, they all should constitute one thought or action. Don’t overload the cards with extra information or actions. And, limit the amount of text in your card. Don’t add paragraphs of texts.

Use Relevant Images

Visuals and imagery are key elements of card-based design. Visuals are the first thing users notice when they scan a card. Therefore, it’s critical to select a relevant image for our cards. The image should allow you to communicate the meaning of a section (card) at a glance. Ensure that all the graphics are appropriately displayed across different sized platforms since they are going to scale as per the platform.

Clearly Indicate Interactive Elements Within a Card

In case the UI card contains interactive elements, it’s vital to indicate such elements clearly. It is recommended to use visual dividers to separate individual regions in cards. Dividers can be either visible or created using whitespace around each block to make it easier for users to separate different sections.

Reveal More Information Using Parent-to-Child Transition

Cards are transformable UI components; they can transform and change to show additional content to users. The card should always expand to fill the screen with additional information. When it comes to animated transitions, it’s recommended to avoid fancy animated effects such as flip over. This kind of effect demands too much attention and is bound to irritate and annoy users if they see it repeatedly.

Support Micro-Interactions

While cards are interactive elements that point a user to the more detailed information, a little bit of micro-interaction on the card will boost the experience. You can use micro-interactions when the user hovers the mouse on the card, clicks a link or a button.

Wrap Up

Creating a good card UI design is all about creating an intuitive browsing experience for your users. Card UI design is one of those skills that allow you to solve a wide array of UI design problems once mastered. Wish to discuss more about card UI design? Talk to our experts.

Interested in Website Layout designs? Read here

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Brand & Identity Design UI Design Web Design

Web Designing For Accessibility: Tips And Guidelines To Follow

Web Designing

The world is evolving faster than ever, and humans are becoming more and more dependent on technology. The Internet has changed the world, and today all of us depend on the internet for almost everything. Be it searching for a job, ordering a pizza, booking a dentist appointment, learning, and whatnot? The internet may be an ever-present resource for most people, but connectivity to the resource is a challenge for people living with disabilities. Although there are programs and devices, like screen readers, that make it possible for people with disabilities to access websites, web designing for accessibility is still a practice less followed.

According to data from 2012, almost one in five Americans live with a disability of some kind. Close to one billion people in the world, or 15 percent of the world’s population, lives with a disability. Out of all kinds of disabilities, conditions like visual impairment, autism, difficulty grasping objects, and deafness, just to name a few, can severely limit an individual’s ability to use a computer or smartphone without assistance and support.

There’s a myth that web designing for accessibility is difficult and expensive; it’s not true. Making your website more accessible doesn’t mean adding extra features or content; therefore there shouldn’t be an additional cost and effort.

Here are a few tips that will help you in web designing for accessibility in accordance with the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), and will allow your website to work on the most commonly used assistive technologies — including screen readers, screen magnifiers, and speech recognition tools.

Maintain a Proper Contrast Ratio

Color contrast is an important aspect of web designing. But, it is often neglected as a web accessibility problem. People with low vision could find it difficult to read text from a background color if it has low contrast, whether on a plain background or text embedded within an image. A movie with subtitles is a good example. The text often appears without anticipating the background. It happens when white text appears in a brightly lit scene. It is unreadable, and the audience is left not knowing the dialogue.

It is critical to consider the sufficient contrast between text and background. According to the W3C, the contrast ratio between text and its background should be at least 4.5 to 1 (conformance level AA.) The ratios become more forgiving with larger and heavier fonts since they’re easier to read at lower contrast. If your type is at least 18 pt or 14 pt bold, the minimum contrast ratio drops to 3 to 1. You can use tools like Contrast Checker to see how your planned font and background colors work together.

Don’t Just Rely On Colors 

When you’re communicating something important, showing an action, or prompting a response, don’t use color as the only visual cue. People with low visual acuity or color blindness will have a hard time understanding your content. Try to use an indicator other than colors such as text labels or patterns.

Elements with more complex information like charts and graphs can be especially hard to read when you only use color to distinguish the data. Use other visual aspects to communicate information like shape, labels, and size. A good trick is to print your graph in black and white and see if you can still understand everything in it.

Keep Your Navigation Predictable

The navigation system your website uses should be consistent across its pages. This includes the icons you use and the way visitors get to different pages within the site. if your homepage has a top header bar with drop-down menus, each of your other pages should have this arrangement, too. Similarly, the icons you use across your website need to be consistent.

You should also stay away from any kind of automatic navigation and auto-playing music and videos. not only are they annoying, but it’s also difficult for a user with a screen reader to determine how to pause them. And when a slideshow or carousel scrolls through content at a rapid rate, users can become confused and frustrated.

Support Keyboard-Only Navigation

Web designing for accessibility is not restricted to the elements on the screen. Keyboard accessibility is one of the most critical aspects of web accessibility. Especially for the ones who are blind and rely on screen readers. Also, for people who don’t have precise muscle control; they can’t grasp a mouse or keep their hand steady on a laptop’s touchpad. These users rely on their keyboards to navigate websites. 

These users typically use the Tab key on the keyboard to navigate through interactive elements on a web page – links, buttons, or input fields. The order of the interactive elements is essential, and the navigation must be logical and intuitive. The tab order should follow the visual flow of the page – left to right, top to bottom.

Add Appropriate Alt-Tags To Images

Alt tags are brief descriptions of the images you use that get buried in the site’s HTML. Most users never see these descriptions, but site visitors using screen readers rely on them since they “hear” the content. These tools convert text to speech so that the person can hear the words on a site. Alternative text, or alt tags, can be presented in two ways –  within the <alt> attribute of the image element, or within the context or surroundings of the image itself. 

Alt tags aren’t just useful for your visually impaired audience; they’re for your benefit too. Well-crafted alt tags improve your site’s SEO, drawing more relevant site traffic and improving conversions.

Use Labels Or Instructions With Form Fields And Inputs 

Using placeholder text as labels are one of the biggest mistakes when designing a form. Placeholder text is usually gray and has low contrast, so it’s hard to read. People who use screen readers usually navigate through a form using the Tab key to jump through the form controls. The <label> elements are read for each form control. Any non-label text, as placeholder text, is usually skipped over.

Always help people understand what they should do and write in a form. It’s best if labels don’t go away, even when the person is filling an input. When designers hide descriptions or directions in their forms, they’re sacrificing usability to attain simplicity. That said, we don’t want you to clutter your design with unnecessary information, just make sure to provide essential cues.

Web designing for accessibility is a new and growing trend. While these tips will certainly help you in creating websites that are much more accessible for people with disabilities, there is still a lot of scope in terms of improving the user experience for this set of audience. As designers, we all need to grow and master the art of accessibility since technology is usable for all – regardless of their abilities. Looking to improve your web design? Talk to our experts.

Looking for 2020 Design Trends? Click Here to Know More

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Brand & Identity UI Design Web Design

7 Unique And Amazing Website Layouts To Draw Inspiration From

Website Layouts

There are zillions of websites over the internet, and standing out from the crowd is a big task. A lot of designers follow the tried and tested design format of the website layouts since it’s a safe bet. But, by doing that they become part of the crowd. If you browse through the internet today, you will find a lot of similar websites; we are not saying that they are designed poorly, but they are not unique. That said, you still come across some website layouts that take an alternative approach to designing and come with something special. In this article, we will show you some examples of unique website layouts designs, so you can create sites that break the monotony, without compromising on user expectations.

1. The Goonies

The Goonies use a full-screen hero image that scrolls into the page and transitions into a series of grid website layouts. The Goonies is a 1980s classic movie, which is turned into a promotional-style website by Joseph Berry. It has won an honorable mention and Site of the Day award from Awwwards. It is an excellent example of storytelling and modern web design. The interactions and animations create a highly engaging user experience and allow fans to relive some of their favorite moments from the movie.

The Goonies - Website Layouts

2. Heco Partners

Heco Partners, a Chicago-based design agency, draws you into their website with its flowing movement. On its landing page, you see the words, “We turn information into experiences that people care about” hovering above an undulating wave. These two elements, in combination, symbolize their promise of transforming ideas into action. The visitors straightaway get a powerful sense of who they are and what they do, without even scrolling down. This site is a superb example of the right way to combine a portfolio with more detailed background information, as illustrated by each of their projects. 

There are no obvious navigation cues, but an arrow prompts you to scroll down to get the whole Heco Partners story, but you can also deviate into their project-based case studies. The beauty of the fading transitions between each section, as well as various other animations, makes the site a pure pleasure to scroll through. 

Heco Partners - Website Layouts

3. Beagle

Another excellent example of visually and progressively telling the product story in a simple and easy-to-digest way is Beagle. It’s challenging for many startups; even experienced companies miss out at simple storytelling. It gets even trickier when companies are introducing new concepts to existing markets. There are obvious questions in people’s mind – what is your product? How does it work? Why do I care? Beagle answers all those questions while simultaneously showing their product and compelling the user to purchase. Another interesting point to notice is that it is one of the few sites to implement scroll hijacking successfully.

Beagle - Website Layouts

4. World of SWISS

SWISS airlines have created an incredibly immersive site that tells their story and describes what it’s like to fly with them. They have done a fantastic job by using strong visuals and animations to introduce the user to different sections of the site that are packed with information beyond the mundane sales and marketing pitch that is very commonly used these days.

World of Swiss

5. Nelu Cebotari’s Portfolio

Nelu Cebotari’s is a portfolio website that uses a three-column hero that transforms into the main navigation menu upon scrolling. It is a personal online portfolio that captures the creator’s personality and skills as a designer while avoiding the stamp of a cliche.

Overall, the color scheme makes an impact. Prominently, the background color choice makes the black text really stand out. Another unique part of this design is its navigation. It is placed upfront and center, as are the calls to action – about, work and contact. Hovering over each of these reveals a box that slides up from the bottom. Each of these squares has a bit of text prompting you to learn more or to get in touch. This stripped-down, spartan approach is distinctive, and not commonly found.

Nelu Cebotari’s portfolio

6. Never Summer Snowboards

Never Summer Snowboards uses a full-screen background video that provides a portal into more traditional eCommerce pages. Never Summer concentrates on its products without losing its sense of fun. It’s easy for action sports companies such as snowboard manufacturers to coast on the charisma and abilities of their riders. Whoever goes out loud and bigger can sell almost any snowboard to their adoring fans. Never Summer allows the riders to be a part of their story. However, the real focus here is on their high-quality products.

There are a lot of technical specs, but they’re there for reasons  – they’ll help out customers on the slopes. Instead of using jargon, they inform you how all of these materials and construction techniques make their boards better.

There was every possibility that this site may overload customers with information since there were many technical specs and a focus on board construction. But, they avoided this by injecting plenty of personality and character. 

Never Summer Snowboards

7. Sounds of the Universe

‍‍Sounds of the Universe digitally allows its customers to get the real-world experience of going to the record store. The grid-based representation of a brick-and-mortar record store is out of the box and makes the site stand out.

Sounds of the Universe is the digital offshoot of the eclectic record label Soul Jazz. From reissuing rare funk, jazz, and punk, to putting out new releases, they make sure people listen to music that gets less attention.

The eCommerce website represents many genres with plenty of background information about the artists and sound samples. What is particularly enticing about the site is that its layout design beautifully captures the feel of being in a record store. You can flip through various releases in a gallery, if you like something you can click the cover for a closer look, just like the real store. By translating the physical act of browsing through records into a digital experience, Sounds of the Universe sets itself apart from other music retailers who lack this sort of familiar interactivity.

Sounds of Universe

We hope that you’re inspired by the creativity shown by the designers of these sites. It takes courage and lots of confidence to attempt a unique design style, but it definitely pays dividends by setting yourself different from the clutter and adds a unique element to the user experience. Want to talk more about creating out of the box designs? Get in touch with our experts.

Read more about how you can highlight your content in the specific website layouts

*all images are sourced from respective websites

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Brand & Identity Design UX UX Design

UX Design Practices To Prevent Users From Making Errors

Design Practices

Nobody likes to commit mistakes in the first place. Not committing an error is the ideal situation, but it’s not always possible. Mistakes are an integral part of user experience as well. Designers must consider all scenarios wherein a user can commit a mistake/error and lookout for ways to prevent users from making at least some of those errors. In today’s article, we will discuss a set of design practices that help in preventing users from making mistakes.

Before diving into the design practices, let us categorize the types of errors. There are primarily two kinds of errors – 

Slips – these occur when users intend to perform one action, but end up doing another (often similar) action.

Mistakes – these are made when users have goals that are inappropriate for the current problem or task; even if they take the right steps to complete their goals, the steps will result in an error.

Directional Cues

One of the best ways of preventing mistakes is by offering directional cues. Directional cue is an element of user interface that gives a visual hint on specific interaction or content to let the user see it faster and easier. Just like the road signs and signposts. They guide a visitor or user to the essential elements, text lines, and call-to-action elements. This makes the conversion reachable and users’ reach to the solutions of their problems quickly. Arrows, pointers, and other visual prompts help to navigate users through the interface and make it easier to avoid unnecessary clicks and interactions.

Helpful Constraints

While it’s not always a good idea to limit users’ choices, in cases where there are clear rules that define acceptable options, it can be an excellent strategy to constrain the types of input users can make. For example, booking a flight typically involves selecting the dates of travel, and there are a few rules that govern which dates are acceptable. One of the primary rules is that a return flight cannot happen before a departure. If users aren’t limited in the dates they can choose, they may slip and accidentally select a set of dates for their flight that doesn’t follow the rules. A helpful constraint here will force users to pick a date range that fits.

Visualized Limitations

One more way to prevent the user from wasting their time and effort is by showing the visual limitations, if they exist, right in the process. One of the classic examples is Twitter. There is a limitation of 140 characters per tweet, and the platform shows you clearly if you exceed that number: the extra part is highlighted with color, the number of additional characters is shown, and the button of the tweet becomes inactive. Such an approach saves users’ time and effort and prevents unnecessary clicks.

Text Prompts

UX designers know much more about user interfaces and interactions than an average user. While that’s a great advantage, when they design interfaces, it may act as a barrier at times. Something that may be obvious to a designer, may appear confusing for users. The function behind the particular field or button may seem crystal clear to the designer, but not for users of an app or a website. Short and clear text prompts are very helpful in such cases. Usability testing will help you to find the pain points where it’s needed most of all. One of the popular examples is text prompt in the search field or simple clues in the fields of a contact form.

Clear Indications

‘You have made an error’, Something went wrong, ‘can’t proceed’ – these are error messages, but not helpful error messages. A good design clearly highlights where the error has been made and what is the error. Let’s take the example of Facebook. When you enter a wrong password or username, it tells me exactly what errors I have made. Facebook flags the exact mistakes I made by warning me, very visibly, that I’ve entered a wrong password or username. Such real-time feedback reduces the cognitive load on users’ part. It also helps in creating an overall good UX for them.

Onboarding Tutorials and Tooltips

Onboarding is a set of techniques and interactions to comfort the user. It provides a brief introduction to the product or service. One of the ways to quickly introduce the app to the user in onboarding tutorial, a set of several screens that are shown to the first-time users and explaining the benefits and functionality. You may show some crucial things that differentiate the interface from others and potentially lower the chances of errors that could arise later.

Tooltips are another onboarding technique that significantly reduces errors. Tooltips are prompting messages tied to particular layout elements or user actions. They usually appear in modal windows rather than separate screens. Tooltips present a proactive way to guide the user to the right option and avoid misunderstandings.

Forgiving Formatting

Some tasks do require users to type very detailed or precise information, but forcing people to provide this information in a particular format can be a poor user experience. If you are asking users to input numerical information into a form, be flexible, and format that information in a way that is easily scannable (by humans, not machines) to prevent mistakes.

While your website’s database might not allow non-numeric characters to be stored in a phone number, you surely want your users to notice typos when they enter their phone number. One solution is to let users type in a way that’s natural to them, rather than forcing them to use the format that your application expects. Do some behind-the-scenes data scrubbing to remove parentheses or other characters that users may type, rather than frustrating them with an inflexible format. Even better, format the users’ input as they type.

Conclusion

A good design is all about enhancing the user experience. Users will commit mistakes, but if designers follow the above-mentioned design practices, the chances of errors will be reduced substantially. Do you want to know more about sound design practices? Talk to our design experts.

Want to know more about UI and UX. Read our article about how they are connected

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Design Technology UI Design Web Design

Website Designing Approach For B2B vs B2C

Website Designing

The products, services, and goals of different companies will vary. Some companies sell directly to the end-user, B2C companies, while others sell to other businesses, B2B business. The marketing strategies for B2B companies will undoubtedly be different from B2C companies. So would be their websites and their website designing. Although both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) websites need to be clear, concise, and aesthetically pleasing, there are significant differences in their web designs. B2B websites are often lacking and fail to create an impact as they fail to recognize the need for a different design approach to their website(s). 

Here are fundamental differences between B2B and B2C marketing that will help you plan its website design more effectively.

Target Audience

One of the more evident and critical differences between B2B and B2C websites is the audience. B2B customers make decisions based on logic, information, and well-explained benefits, while B2C customers are more influenced by emotion. They want quick solutions to their problems. Marketing and design teams will put a lot of effort into defining buyer personas for a B2C website. A good B2C website will focus on personalization of the website based on individual consumers, and upon their purchasing and browsing habits. 

It is different for most of the B2B websites, which must cater to their user experience to vastly different personas who may potentially become a new lead. With B2B websites, you’ll be speaking to a range of highly-educated individuals who already have a general knowledge of your service. B2B marketers are mostly targeting an audience group of 3-4 people at certain organizations. The language and content of the website are all about highlighting the key benefits of the products, and the kind of outcomes that they can deliver. Designers need to work harder at convincing B2B buyers that they’re making the right decision. 

The Buying Purpose

Another key differentiating factor between B2C to B2B websites is the motive behind a customer’s purchase. Knowing what’s driving a target audience to interact with a brand will help you in creating a website that appeals to specific goals.

For B2C businesses, consumers are a lot easier to appeal to in terms of emotional impact, because many of them come to a website looking to suffice an urgent need. As a result, many web designers can take advantage of things like urgency and demand to encourage conversions. On the other hand, B2B websites often aim to solve expensive and time-consuming problems for companies. To sell the validity of a solution to a decision-maker, it’s important to comprehensively explain the solution, how it works, and how it addresses a specific pain point.

A B2B website must focus on providing information that facilitates the decision-making process of companies. Furthermore, decisions are often made by several stakeholders in B2B businesses, while B2C websites ask a single person to make a choice. A B2C website needs to address immediate concerns and connect with customers on an emotional level. B2C buyers still want to do their research on products or services, but the turnaround is much quicker, and often requires less information.

Sales Cycle

The typical sales cycle for B2C is much shorter than for B2B. Selling straight-to-consumer often happens within one website browsing session. A typical B2C sales cycle has the following procedure:

  • Check a few websites
  • Read some reviews
  • Revisit websites with good reviews
  • Do a final review and comparison
  • Place the order

The cycle is different for B2C customers. The cycle can even last for weeks, months, maybe a year.

B2C Sales Cycle:

  • Internal meeting to discuss the needs 
  • Initial research
  • 6 to 7 potential vendors shortlisted
  • Pros and cons reviewed for each one
  • Selected vendors list forwarded to the decision-maker(s)
  • The decision-maker(s) analyze the options and decide on a top 3
  • The lead form on the top 3 websites filled
  • Several weeks (even months) of determining the final purchase price, delivery, terms, etc.
  • The final close of the sale

Clearly, designing a website that addresses the B2B scenario requires a number of strategies that vary from the B2C scenario. Because pricing is often not visible on B2B websites, customers are instead vetting potential partners for trust, quality, and expertise.

Content

The way of conveying information, or the messaging, will be totally different for both B2B websites and B2C websites. Generally, everything from the language, to the amount of content that you use on these websites will differ hugely. 

When designing a B2C website, you need to make sure the content strategy is up to par. The site will need catchy and compelling headlines. Short, yet appealing to the customer. Since the consumer is not looking for tons of information, you do not want to overload the website with content. Minimal content and large images will do the job.

When designing for a B2B website, you’ll need to be careful with content, as you’ll be speaking to a very mixed audience. If your site caters to different industries, you’ll need to ensure that you show authority, without using too much jargon. Some companies even create different pages on their site for specific customers.

Visual Elements

Just as the focus of your website design and the audience that you’re creating the experience for can differ from B2B to B2C websites, the visual elements of the design might change too. 

In most cases, B2B websites are all about presenting a highly professional and respectable image. You’ll notice a lot of safe and clear choices when it comes to typography and imagery. It’s unusual to see a B2B website that takes risks with things like illustrations and animations. On the other hand, B2C websites can be a little bolder. With so many different options to choose from, and most customers buying out of a sense of urgency or sudden demand, designers are under pressure to capture attention quickly. This means that it’s much more likely to see large pieces of eye-catching imagery on B2C sites, with very little text.

Want to build a useful B2B website that gets organic traffic and generates qualified leads for your business? Or wish to accelerate your B2C business through a quality website? Please speak to our experts and let’s get started.

Read More about the importance of Graphics Design in your business here

Categories
Brand & Identity Design UI Design

When To And When Not To Use Dark Themes?

Dark Themes

The dark theme or the dark mode design has been trending from quite some time now. It became seemingly famous across the world of the internet when Google adopted it for Google drive. It did receive an excellent response from all nooks and corners of the world; however, that doesn’t mean that every business or website can pull off a dark theme. What are the factors that need to be considered before deciding on using dark themes? When should you use dark themes? When should you avoid a dark theme? Let’s check it out.

The Dark Themes Can Be Used When You Want To:

  • Emphasize visual content
  • Enhance emotional branding
  • Go minimalistic
  • Match your brand colors
  • Improve usability

Emphasize Visual Content

A dark theme is perfect for making visual applications and websites stand out. The deep, substantial backgrounds provide the much needed high-contrast backdrop for images, graphics, videos, and visuals of any shape and color. It elevates the visual hierarchy as the lighter visual content stands out against the dark background; Especially if you’re using large, high-contrast images. If images are playing the lead role in your application, or website, and a copy is a sidekick, consider a dark color palette.

Enhance Emotional Branding

A dark theme needs much more blank space to avoid looking chaotic and cluttered. Thus, dark applications and websites tend to elicit stronger emotions than light ones. Color psychology also impacts the emotional appeal. Generally, we associate dark colors, primarily black, with mystery, power, elegance, and drama. Therefore, when a dark background is paired with some high-contrast, big images, the finished output looks stunning.

This mood-setting strategy works beautifully and frequently appears on product pages and entertainment applications. Apple’s iOS 13 page uses a dark color scheme to make their product seem more sophisticated and elegant. Similarly, the Halo App’s dark theme makes it look more dramatic. However, a lightly-colored website or app can be just as impactful. Choosing the right color scheme depends entirely upon what emotions you want your brand to evoke.

Go Minimalistic With Dark Themes

In case you already use a minimalist design that has limited content, your conditions are suitable for dark mode. In a situation where the text is the primary content, dark UI can make legibility an issue. Typically, dark mode amplifies visual clutter making a cluttered screen even more chaotic.

Match Your Brand Colors

When a brand’s existing color palette is already dark mode compatible, the dark mode is the way to go forward. Think twice about going dark if it seems like you have to change the brand to fit the aesthetic. Similarly, if your brand needs to use a wide spectrum of colors, consider a lighter UI. The full-color spectrum doesn’t read pleasantly on dark backgrounds.

Improve Usability

Sometimes, your app has to be dark to be user-friendly. For instance, apps designed for heavy nighttime use will employ a dark color scheme to avoid straining the user’s eyes. The trend is especially noticeable in entertainment apps like Netflix and Prime Video, but other applications offer a dark mode, too. Twitter lets users toggle between light and dark in the settings, and Google Maps automatically darkens at night.

However, the time of day isn’t the only usability factor to consider. If your application is intended to be used for hours without rest, a dark theme may minimize eye strain. That’s why dark themes are popular in code editors and financial apps.

You must avoid dark themes when your website or app has:

  • Lots of text
  • Lots of elements
  • Bright colors

Lots of Text

One of the most significant drawbacks of a dark color scheme is that it is terrible for displaying text. Light text on a dark background is hard to read. Dark themes are not suitable for interfaces with lots of copy. Not only do people have to spend more time reading the text, but the comprehending ratio also dips. On the other hand, dark text on a white background looks crisp, clean, and refined. The copy is easy to read and extremely legible. Browse across all major news and blogging websites, and you will find that they all have light backgrounds instead of dark ones. Your website should not have a dark theme if it contains lots of written content.

Lots of Elements

Finally, a dark theme can be a poor choice for apps and websites with lots of icons, buttons, and small images. That’s because of the dark background de-accentuate empty space. While de-emphasized empty space makes large images and minimalist pages elegant and dramatic, it makes small icons and dense pages look cluttered, unorganized, and unprofessional. Admin backend panels are a great example. The difference is even more obvious when you compare a light panel with a dark one. 

On dashboards, the dark theme does not look bad, but it does look denser. In some instances, that’s not a problem. However, the clutter problems don’t end here, because, with a dark color scheme, it’s hard to make each element stand out. Since a dark color scheme limits your color selection, it’s harder for a designer to maintain good contrast. This does not pose a problem if a page has a few key elements, but if a page contains several buttons, icons, menus, and banners, the overall design will look much less cluttered on a light background.

Bright Colors in Dark Themes

Dark themes also limit your color options. Too many bright colors can clash against the dark background and give your entire website a harsh and unfriendly appearance. While the occasional splash of color can add brilliant emphasis, most of your elements should be muted neutral colors.

Read more about how to use colors in web design here

There are a lot of advantages to using a dark theme:

  • It reduces the strain on eyes
  • It increases visibility in low-ambient lighting
  • Saves a lot of battery life
  • Gives an emotional boost 

But, you need to understand that one size doesn’t fit all, and hence the pointers mentioned above will help you in deciding if you must use a dark theme or not. Still, confused? Talk to our experts now!

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UI Design Web Design

7 Handy Tips To Improve Your Website Design

Website Design

It is a known fact that today’s business is conducted online. From shopping to marketing, to communicating with providers, people depend on the Internet to help them perform everyday tasks. Without a website, businesses, blogs, and brands can’t be successful. That’s the reason why everyone is on the internet today. With millions of websites, it becomes extremely challenging to stand out from the crowd. A website usually has 4-5 secs to create an impression on visitors; that’s very little time. Therefore, website designers must ensure that they create a website design that ensures a delightful, user-friendly experience.

We often talk about the latest design trends, user experience enhancement, interface enhancement, and a lot of other things. The idea is always to keep improving the website experience by offering the best. However, a lot of times, we tend to forget some basic actions which can elevate the website design and experience to a whole new level. Here are a few tips.

Use White Space

First things first – Whitespace doesn’t mean a lot of white color, its the way designers term the empty space or negative space. Research and studies suggest that the use of white space in the left and right margins, and in between paragraphs, increases reader comprehension by almost 20 percent. Adding white space means more user interaction, the page looks better, and you can highlight your CTAs with more ease if you have enough white space to go around. It balances the visual elements by creating a visual hierarchy. Whitespace increases content legibility and acts as a separator.

Optimize The Page Speed

Website speed has long been discussed in the world of marketing, and it’s one of the main reasons why a lot of visitors bounce off from certain websites. People are impatient on the internet. They don’t like to wait and expect instant responses to their queries. If your website doesn’t load within a few seconds, to be honest, 2-3 seconds at the max, the visitors will most likely bounce off looking for other options. 

You can check your page load speed through a Google-free service, where you can get information on your page speed. Google will also offer you some suggestions for improving your page load time on Mobile and Desktop. 

To improve your page speed, start by compressing all your images before loading them onto your website. The image file size is one of the leading causes of a slow page speed — using websites like compressor.io can help you dramatically speed up each webpage you own. There are several ways to optimize page speed.

Create a Responsive Website Design

With the revolutionary advancement of mobile and other devices, your website is most likely to be accessed from devices other than PCs and laptops. It’s critical that your website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate no matter what type of device your audience uses to access it. 

Google started penalizing sites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices from 2015, making the need for responsiveness even more crucial. This is probably the most valuable way to improve your website’s usability. A responsive design will do wonders for your website in terms of SEO and will help you position yourself higher in SERPs. So, create a mobile version of your website, use mobile plugins, and convert your website into a Responsive Web Design (RWD).

Make a Clear Call To Action

Some interesting facts – SAP found that orange CTA buttons boost conversion rates by 32.5%, while Performable found that red CTA buttons boost rates by a whole 21%. In creating buttons for your website you should think about color and the psychology of color. Different colors evoke different messages. Think about the message that you want to evoke for a user (trust, experience, intelligence) and choose your colors wisely. 

A second thing to consider is the actual words you use for your buttons. The words should include a verb or an action word that excites the user to do something. Use actionable words in them such as discover, start, learn, etc. Calls to actions (CTAs), clearly marked with an action word enable your website users to more easily navigate your site and get exactly what they want in the location they expect to find it.  

Utilize Social Media To The Fullest

22 percent of the world’s population is on Facebook, Instagram has 800 million active monthly users, Linkedin has more than 540 million user profiles, and Twitter has 100 million daily active users. These figures are staggering, which is why it’s important for your website to offer social buttons to your visitors. There’s a chance that they will like what they see, share their thoughts on their profiles, and boost your presence even further. 

Any website improvement ideas should involve taking advantage of social sharing and social following. Social sharing options are a fantastic way to improve website design. Use social media icons of different social media sites to allow users to share your content. The idea is to get guests to share your content when they like what they read. Sharing content puts it out for everyone else to see without you having to do any work. This will allow your website to become more popular and gain site visitors that would have never known about you otherwise.

Use Eye-Catching Images In Website Design

People across the Internet are getting smarter and faster at judging company websites before deciding if they want to browse the site further. When they first visit your site, they can easily pick out a generic stock photo they’ve already seen elsewhere or that resembles the non-personal style of stock photography. Using stock photography can decrease trust and also stand out as generic and non-unique.

With an audience that only has an attention span of 5-6 seconds, you need to create a lasting first impression that easily gets the main points across. This should be done with short, powerful sections of content and applicable photographs/icons that are sectioned off by clear and concise headers.

Website design is the foundation of user experience and needs constant attention and improvement. Are you looking to revamp your website? Or, need help in deloping your website from scratch? Talk to our experts now!

Categories
SEO UI Design Web Design

The Importance of Content in Web Designing

Content Web Designing

Designers around the globe may argue that the most essential aspect of a web design’s success is its visual appeal, and that content is secondary. But, the truth of the matter is that no matter how good and appealing your website may be, it will not be able to achieve success unless it is designed and developed based on solid, useful content in web designing. Great content is what sets your website apart from the masses and delivers the right message to your audience. 

The success of your website is determined primarily by its content. All other components of your website (design, visuals, videos, etc.) provide a secondary support role. The key to a successful website is having clear, relevant, and keyword-rich content that delivers the right message with power and conviction. The content for web designing should target your audience, engage them, and persuade them to take action.

Before you get started with the web design process, make sure that you have the content ready with you. The reason being, your website needs to be built around the content, not the other way round. Here are a few reasons why content is more important than it looks.

SEO

One of the benefits of publishing good content is that it will increase the number of people who find your website through search engines. Search engines love content, especially frequently updated content. Content is the most significant catalyst when it comes to boosting your SEO. Google checks the content quality of a website to determine its ranking. It reviews the relevancy and authenticity of the content to the subject topic. 

There are so many websites on the internet that have amazingly beautiful homepages, but no relevant content at all. In most of the cases, the homepage is the most frequently visited page of a website and therefore it should contain information about what you do, who you are and what you offer. This is one of the main reasons why scrolling websites have become so popular in recent times. If your site contains less information and content, it will be difficult for Google to identify what your website is about, and it will impact your ranking in search results. Visitor traffic, business visibility, and sales will all increase with higher search engine rankings, which is only possible by creating and offering high-quality content while web designing.

User Experience

High-quality website content enhances usability. Usability can range from the navigation of your site to the ease of use for visitors, to the accessibility of your content and to the interconnection between relevant pieces of content. When relevant and useful content is easy to locate, it results in better user experience and more satisfied visitors. If visitors don’t find your website easy to use, then they are more likely to bounce off and visit competitors’ sites instead. A high bounce rate means a loss to the business.

No matter how good the design and functionality of a website is, if the content is poor, the overall user experience will be disappointing. Visitors come to your website for information; to seek answers to their queries. They also want to find out about you, your services, and/or products. They want to know how are your offerings are unique and different from your competitors. They want to know your contact details, your business hours, the experience of clients using your products/services, and a lot more. This is all content and must be available for visitors. Importantly, the content must be available at convenient locations, where people expect it to be. If they have to search rigorously on your website to seek their answers, that’s negative user experience.

Sales generation

Building trust is a vital part of sales generation for any business. One of the important ways of creating that trust is by establishing yourself as an industry thought leader and authority, through the content you produce. In terms of sales generation, good content can be especially useful if you know how to drill down on your targeted demographics and guide them to the purchase.

An estimated 77% of consumers read online content before making a purchase decision. Publishing product-specific content such as FAQs, product reviews, and instructional videos or blog posts can help reassure potential customers and lead to sales. Add screenshots to reviews and include videos where possible. Videos create a next-level impact. Always use a conversational tone while writing and create blog posts on trending, relevant topics. Provide links between the content which can lead the reader to the related product or service. It is an effective way of generating sales.

Competitive Edge

The sole purpose of a website is to showcase a business and its offerings. We all want to attract customers and words play a vital role in enticing potential buyers or clients. People buy from people, and you are more likely to stand out over your competitors by making a connection with your customers by offering them the right content.

As a business, you would have to do things differently and bring your personality at the forefront to attract customers; do this through your website copy. Use your website content to highlight what makes you different, and why a potential client should choose you over someone else in your industry. Make valuable connections with your website visitors to gain a competitive advantage.

Content Is More Than Just Text

Content doesn’t always come in the form of text. Visuals, especially videos, on websites are changing the way important messages are communicated. Visitors expect to get the information they need effortlessly. Custom videos provide a great way to engage audiences and drive essential messaging in a format that requires less effort than reading large amounts of text. Additionally, illustrations, infographics, diagrams, and interactive presentations are often used to explain difficult concepts and help users in taking decisions.

Market Your Content

Even great content will not be able to become effective content, if not marketed properly. Content Marketing involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content to acquire customers. This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including blog posts, news, videos, white papers, infographics, case studies, how-to guides, photos, etc. Content Marketing is one of the best methodologies for marketing your website and your business. Posting relevant, valuable, and frequently updated information on your website will also boost your search ranking and will allow you to build long-lasting relationships with your audience.

Conclusion

Good quality content while web designing is pivotal to the success of your website. It helps in achieving better Google search rankings, enhanced user experience, and leads to more sales. An aesthetical appeal is also important, but the content is the base of any website. Just like web designing, copywriting also requires expertise. Therefore, you must consider hiring a professional copywriter to create your content. Talk to our team of experts now!

Read more about how to design a content-heavy website

Categories
Blog Brand & Identity Technology UI Design

How To Design A Content Heavy Website?

Content Heavy Website

Minimal website design is a big trend these days. A lot of brands have hopped on the bandwagon, but it may not be the best choice for them. It is not always possible to summarize our information into small blocks that fit nicely on the page. Some websites need strong, powerful content to create value for their visitors, and that can mean – a content-heavy website. However, a content-heavy website doesn’t really mean that you need to sacrifice on the styling quotient. With new, content-rich design techniques, it is now possible to achieve beautiful, sophisticated design without appearing cluttered, even if your site is content-heavy. Here are a few tips for designing a content-heavy website.

Plan Your Layout Carefully

A lot of careful planning is required to execute any good idea. You may have the written content ready and have a website that’s already live. But, it would be best if you created detailed page layouts. You can sketch them with pen and paper, use a wireframing tool, or a graphics program. No matter which medium you use, it should allow you to turn your thoughts and ideas into tangible concepts.

Carefully consider and include white spaces when planning the layout design. Since your site is already content-rich, you will need to incorporate as much white space as you can, and in a manner that maximizes your aesthetic appeal. Another critical step is to break your content into small chunks – under subheadings and lists, or other elements such as visuals or boxes. Categorize all your information and get a firm idea of how you would like it to be displayed on the page.

With the amount of text you have on your site, it is incredibly important to take due care in choosing what that text will look like. Readers need to be able to read your content and leave with a takeaway. If a user does not consciously notice the layout of your text, you have achieved your goal. Users should not have to think about your text or notice that it is too small, too jammed, or too hard to read.

Support The Text With Imagery

Pictures are a reliable medium of communication and create a profound, meaningful impact on readers. One of the ways to efficiently use images is by breaking up your information into a photo collage, with each photo a clickable link to some part of your website. Use pictures in a way that it makes your page look aesthetically pleasing while still including as much content as you need to. You can also choose a photo grid system layout, which is similar but makes use of space as well as the collage aspect.

Another idea to enhance the aesthetic appeal of your content-rich website is to take the simple approach and do a hand-drawn sitemap for your front page, with doodles or exciting animations that bring users to certain areas of content. If you don’t like the college or hand-drawn approach, you can keep your site clean and simple with monochrome backgrounds and plain graphics. Or, you can make your top-priority content take the form of more significant photo links, with smaller, less important information on the side.

Keep It Elegant And Tidy

There is nothing worse than pairing text-heavy content with sloppy design. If you are going to fit all the necessary information you need into one website, you need to make it easy for users to navigate. The key to simple navigation with content-rich websites is to stick to a rigid main structure, such as a tiled layout with titles and minimal subtext.

Loading all your content onto the front page or even have a welcome page with a pull-down menu of options can confuse your visitors and make them wander around without retaining anything they read. Instead, keep your site clean and organized. Reveal your content a little at a time, enticing the user and making them want to learn more.

Information overload is a massive roadblock for content-heavy websites. A few smart web design techniques, such as implementing ample white space and using boxes or borders to categorize information can help in removing these roadblocks. 

Use Various Forms of Content

Written content is not the only form of content. There are other forms, like video content, that are trending in today’s time. Video content is steadily on the rise, especially across mobile devices. Creating eye-catching videos is easier than ever before, with plenty of helpful resources for every level of expertise.

Responsive content is another significant step towards improving a content-heavy website. The content changes and evolves according to what the user wants. On top of responsive design, mobile users are also leaning toward simplicity and elegance in web design, as well as other mobile design trends.

Using video or photo content that is relevant to your text is a great way to hook users and keep them interested. It helps in increasing conversion rates and spreading brand awareness organically, while not losing any of your content.

Use of Visual Aids

The common factor in every standout content-rich website is the use of visual aids. Stunning photography backdrops go a long way in making your site user friendly and keep bulky contextual information away from the main draw. Once users are intrigued, they are much more willing to explore your site and see what other stunning visuals you have to offer.

Whether you make one beautiful image your backdrop or break your layout into multiple photo options, using photos to get your message across is just a part of what makes a website visually stunning. You also need to understand how different colors affect user reactions and the many color theories surrounding web design. There are helpful tools available if you don’t know the first thing about color theory. 

Let’s take a look at the 7 most commonly used website layouts that highlight content in a great way

No doubt minimalistic websites are trending, but that doesn’t mean you need to follow the trend blindly. It also doesn’t mean that you cannot create an aesthetically appealing, content-heavy site. These tips will help you in designing stunning, user-friendly, and impactful websites that are content-rich. Talk to our team of experts for more.