5 Basic Website Elements You Should Know For A Sleek Web Solution
Every website needs to be designed with a certain ruleset, a set of standards that every developer and designer follows to keep every website on the internet consistent.
Of course, this does not mean that all websites are the same, but that their systems are homogenized for the sake of excellent user friendliness and design equilibrium.
These are not systems that are pre-defined but can be exemplified through a multitude of systems that have to complement each other to work correctly.
They are called the elements of web design.
What Are Web Design Elements?
Web Design Elements take the basics of a website, such as its graphical features and programmed development aspects, and use them to contribute to the overall experience. As every website depends on these web design elements working together and in harmony, they have to be created and tailored to the user experience alongside each other.
An example of how web design elements work can be given through how different colors work in certain combinations, and don’t in other ones.
For example, a combination of Red and Green can be very jarring if used as the primary focal point of any design, as they aren’t exactly aesthetically pleasing when looked at in tandem.
On their own, these colors are fine, but as a combo, they should definitely not be seen in good user experience and design. They don’t contrast well and can be distracting rather than alluring.
However, colors like Purple and Gold mix together wonderfully. Both represent the finer things and can provide a luxurious or prestigious atmosphere within your design or color combination.
These are both examples of bad and good web design elements respectively. If the web design elements work together, they will provide the ideal experience, but if they don’t, they are jarring and distracting.
How Many Web Design Elements Are There?
There are five basic elements of web design. Each of these elements contribute to what is called a website's ‘User Experience,’ or ‘UX. A flaw in one of these elements could either make the website entirely non-functional or at least significantly deter from an ideal user experience.
Regardless, the five web design elements we will now present to you are fundamentals, not the entirety. They are there to give you an idea about web design elements and let you brush up on the basics of good web design without overwhelming you with too much information.
They are:
- Content
- Usability
- Visibility
- Interaction
- Aesthetics
The Basic Web Design Elements
Here are some fundamental elements of web designing you should know as a starter to ace the work.
Content Creation
Content is a very broad term, and saying that ‘content is king’ without fully understanding what it means isn’t helpful either. However, that does not mean we don’t know exactly what it entails.
Content is the backbone of your user experience. None of the other web design elements trac without content to back it up. It is not just for seeing and reading, either. Content has far more use cases than that.
Beyond the basic text, audio, and video content, you need to optimize it for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which allows your website to appear first in searches. After that, you —need a reason for someone to visit your website, so you create content—and keep doing it—for people to visit and revisit.
It also helps with marketing not just traffic to your website, but any sort of additional service or paid feature you might have.
Social media websites are the most popular content hubs out there, with numerous companies and individuals creating content. The more it gets viewed, the more traffic there is, and that allows for advertisements to be displayed as well.
That means content is not just necessary for an ideal user experience, but also a website’s success and crucial to its business model.
Of course, not every website will have users to create content for you. You need to be on top of things to create first-class content that includes a wide range of things, from engaging videos to blogs, high-res images to calls to action that bring value while providing your potential consumers with the product or service itself.
All this not just helps in the overall website experience, but also enables your website to have users on for much longer.
Ease of use (Usability)
There is a thing in IT, web development, and in digital service technology in general. It is that a regular end-user will not notice anything when the usability of a software or service is good, or even great.
However, when the usability of that software is jarring or bad, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Any website that is visited by a user should not just be serviceable, but usable. There is a key difference in the two as well, because serviceable opts in for the minimum required necessities to keep things functioning, but good usability needs to go further.
Much, much further.
Good usability has ease of navigation. It is intuitive, easy to pick up. It does not need any sort of an instruction booklet or a tutorial.
Good usability combines a user’s innate technical fluency and literacy that they have acquired by using other websites and software, and builds upon it.
For your web design elements to work, the user should know where they are as soon as they come to the landing page, and should be able to navigate through it without needing some sort of sitemap to do so.
Good usability includes anticipation of navigation as well. A user that has just landed on the site might be looking to first explore what the company is, what the product being offered is like, or what their services do.
Or, a user might be looking for services in specific locations, which means they will look for areas that tell them the website’s service locale.
Or, they might be looking for a specific product, so search bars and product categories should be well within reach.
All these things combine to form usability, and whether it's good or bad depends entirely on how well you tailor the web design element both to the user, and all the other website elements in between.
Visibility
No amount of shine and aesthetic is worth it if your website remains in some obscure corner of the web, on the second page of Google, or well even beyond that.
None of the colors and expensive graphics that you spend time and money on would be viable if your website isn’t visible to potential customers or general traffic.
Content and usability are web design elements that make sure your website is working and functioning, but this is where the user first begins their journey; by discovering your website.
Visibility is a web design element that needs presence and outreach. You need social media campaigns, proper SEO marketing, email marketing, and other forms of digital outreach to maximize your website’s success, and its potential to do so.
Every social media content you create also needs to be targeted, which means you have to have an understanding of the types of users, traffic, content, and platform-specific niches exist in your audience and in the platforms you target.
That requires a proper social media plan, content calendars, and teams of people working for you to make it happen.
Visibility is not something garnered overnight, nor is presence, so you need plenty of time to get this web design element truly underway.
Aesthetics
Visuals are no longer inaccessible to the small business owner or Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in general.
That means competition in the aesthetics department has gone up significantly.
That also means that having a website that is both technically and visually impressive is no longer a bonus, but a necessity when it comes to good web design elements. It is what you need to keep your online brand image up to date. On the internet, your website is visible, which means every single action can be instantly scrutinized by your audience. The first thing that a visitor does is use their sense of sight. So, appeal to that sense So, the best course of action would be to connect with them in an aesthetic sense...
Aesthetics can also be used to further propagate the brand image and ‘brand feel.’ There are often brand guidelines provided to designers and other personnel to understand what they are making and why they are making it. Your website reflects your brand and business, so each web design element must be understood by the people making it.
Visual prowess is also subjective in web design elements, but that does not mean you cannot use objective aesthetic rules to make things look better.
For example, symmetry is a universally accepted point of appeal, as well as colors that have a great match together. See the standards of the different color combinations we laid out for you in this blog!
Interaction
Last but not least, is interaction.
After your website is well and truly made, and all the aesthetics and outreach possibilities are planned out, you then need to ensure that your website has something to do.
This does not mean to have filler content on your website, or to put everything in there.
No. A proper web design element combines moderation with subtlety. The user should not know that the experience they are having has been carefully constructed. In fact, if they never actually ‘notice’ their experience at all, that is the best-case scenario.
That also means that everything needs to ‘flow’ in a rhythm. You need to hold your audience’s attention, and you have to use all your web design elements to do that. Presence and visibility are things that get your audience to your website. Now, you just need the final basic web design element to ensure that your audience stays there.
This is the part where you include what interaction is all about—and that are Calls to Action (CTAs).
This CTAs are the bread and butter of website interaction. The website serves primarily as a tool for added channels of communication at first glance, but its true nature is to generate leads, bring customers and sales, and help the business grow and expand.
Bonus Featurette: UI and UX
This particular aspect deserves its blog and information piece, but you need to know that the User Interface (UI) informs the User Experience (UX).
To make a good UX, you need to have a good UI, and you can apply the same philosophy to having good or great web design elements.
Not only are they crucial to you and your business, but also help you in ensuring that your website is as engaging as possible, gives the visitor everything they need, does not need to guide them through every step, and has all the aspects necessary to make a sale, but it should be the last priority. Sure, post-purchase consumer behavior aspects can be added further, but that is a topic for the more advanced web design elements.
Conclusion | Basic Websites Elements You Should Know
Web design elements are aspects of a website that ensure its users are comfortable in using it. It cannot get more simpler than that.
However, things are anything but simple. While it may seem like a straightforward factor in theory, it is significantly different in practice, especially when you add brands and branding identity into the mix.
Websites are not just one system but a cascade of systems working. Then the user should never be aware of the skeleton underneath all those fancy navigation buttons.
That is the basis of these web design elements, and while we have only started at the basics, we hope that it will help you lead into the more advanced types of elements in web design.