When designing a website or online service, companies often have a whole slew of great ideas for functionality. When is enough enough? Can a simple design suffice? How do you make choices about what features to incorporate?
Even the simplest of interfaces, Twitter, has begun to add more complexity with new retweet features, lists, trending topics, and more. Aesthetically, “good design” means design that is appealing to the eye, and is easily navigated visually. With this idea, it is important that complex interfaces are well designed so that the users who prefer simplicity do not feel overwhelmed. – Finding the Balance of Design and Functionality (ReadWriteStart)
I believe good design is not separated from good functionality. In order for a website to be well designed it needs to incorporate the functionality that is needed in a way that makes it easy to use and understand. There are plenty of pretty websites which I would not classify as “good designs” because they do not make it easy for website visitors to use the site – or even worse, they miss some features that are required in order for the visitor to do what they want.
Good design is important because visitors have so many choices of websites they can use and visit online. If your site is not both visually appealing and easy to use, people are just going to go elsewhere. And good design does not mean cluttering your site with links and ads – white space does count too as it allows the eye to visually take in everything your site has to offer.
What do you think good design means?
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