Website
Graphics to impress your customers
Have you noticed some websites with shoddy graphics, putting you off? Hopefully
not your site! Here are some tips on what to look for when
getting a website built...
You need good looking graphics for your website to be effective
Research shows
that nearly 50% of a website’s initial credibility is judged
by the graphical presentation. ‘Simple’ or ‘complex’
is not the issue so much as quality. Graphics and text
need to work together for a website to effectively inform,
instruct, or
sell to its target viewers in a form they can relate
to.
What are common
problems with website graphics?
In the technological
world of the Internet, the general principles of design are
sometimes overlooked. Perhaps
this is because it is
so easy to put up a web page compared to the more formal
process of producing printed material. Some common problems
I’ve noticed
are fragmented or disjointed elements, poor alignment
or balance, lack of colour co-ordination, fuzziness, and
jagged edges.
So what should
we look for in website graphics?
The Web is really
just another medium, like magazines, TV, billboards, etc where
general design principles
need to be applied. Relevant design principles for
websites are listed below:
- Consistency
It’s
important for your website pages to be consistently recognisable;
it pays to have a common
‘template’
look and structure on all pages.
It’s confusing for people when the look changes
from page to page.
- Unity
The individual elements of an image
should form a co-ordinated whole, by means such
as colour co-ordination, common background, grouping of
elements, and borders around certain areas.
- Balance
There should be an overall balance of
elements in the image layout, e.g. some sort of
symmetry, adequate borders, and enough white space to
give the eyes a rest.
- Proportion
Proportions between image elements can
make the difference between awkwardness and pleasantness
to the eye, e.g. overly big buttons can look clumsy.
The web page needs to look reasonably proportioned in different
computer screen resolutions.
- Contrast
Contrast is needed to make things, the
most important things, stand out and attract attention.
This can be achieved by various means including colour,
darkness, texture, etc.
- Image Sharpness
Images are compressed down to small
file sizes to speed-up web page download to your
computer. The level of compression is a balancing act
between image
quality and file size. If the compression is over-done
the image becomes fuzzy or speckled, especially edges,
and ‘ghosted’ where edges are echoed like on a TV screen
with poor reception.
Another
problem is jagged edges or "aliasing" on sloping edges
(not vertical or horizontal). Good
quality web graphics are anti-aliased where the edges
fade away gradually
into the background creating a smooth look. Elements
with a ‘halo’ around them have been anti-aliased into
the wrong coloured background then cut out and placed
on a different
background colour.
It’s worth paying for decent graphics
Most established professional companies are well-trained in graphics so you shouldn’t
have much problem. Be careful getting a friend or some
cheap
party to
build a
website for you as the result may be embarrassing
and reflect badly on your organisation’s professionalism
and credibility.
Having no graphics is probably better than shoddy
graphics, but attractive graphics in a good website
design can really draw peoples’ interest to your site.
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