I hope you can see themes through my work – ideally you can see how these sites will get results.

These 14 examples may look good to you, they may not. I don’t mind. What matters is, will they sell?

Feel free to use for inspiration, and to comment.

BankLoans.com

This design is quite significant to me, because it was one of the first I created after waking up to the realisation that web design should generate action.
The combination of honest primary colours and greyscale gives a clean and visually appealing combination.

Cashflow Builder

A simple layout, with a bold promise up-front. “Your First Million is FREE!” is a device that I came up with for this client.

The idea is that, until their software (which basically helps businesses of any size to balance their accounts receivable faster – saving them money) has processed $1M – they don’t charge.

Innovaworks

Innovaworks is an excellent development company, mainly based in Macedonia.

I redesigned their site to promote the benefits of using them: incredible expertise at significantly less cost than using US/UK developers.

Surfulater

A small site for a developer who makes this neat software that helps you capture and organise content from anywhere.

Again, the site really focuses on the benefits of the software – which is what people really need to see.

Ville & Company

A super-super-clean site for a UK consulting firm with a refreshingly different approach compared to their big-business competitors.

This site feels like a breath of fresh air, which is what Ville offer to their customers, who are mainly public sector agencies.

QVision – Lasik, Arizona

QVision are laser vision correction surgeons in Arizona, USA.

Their site needed to appeal to the local market, feel trustworthy, clean, and professional, and to incorporate online bookings.

Bolwell

Bolwell is an Australian-owned composites specialist with a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Thailand.

The site needed to show their incredible range of services, which stretches from trains to trucks to their own supercar!

Atom – CRM for Building Contractors

How do you market a new product to a segment that doesn’t know a solution exists to its problems? What about when your prospects tend to prefer scraps of paper to computers?

The answer is: You have to go to them. When a prospect is directed to this neat little site for Atom, they should immediately get, “Yes, I see how this is for me.”

Pro Web Design Alliance

The design for my web design membership site is an evolution of this site’s WordPress theme.

It works, proving that when you have something close to hand that works, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Synctus

This is a net backup solution that synchronises files securely across multiple sites, on specially modified hard drives.

As you might expect, the site is really simple and straightforward, which helps suggest the product will also be simple to use.

Me2Solar

These guys make neat, portable solar chargers for everyone from vacationing families to business travellers and explorers.

This design, which sits on the Magento e-commerce platform, is multi-lingual and has a sharp, modern look that suits the innovative products.

Abeo

Abeo Technical Services make security systems for airports and military bases world-wide.

Their AWARE system is a futuristic platform that monitors all kinds of input data and intelligently alerts security staff when it spots unusual activity.

Goddiva

UK-based Goddiva sell dresses and other fashion clothing based on what the celebrities are wearing right now – but at a fraction of the price.

This highly-styled site represents a departure from my usual straightforward approach, but I think it works.

The benefit of using parent and child themes is that when the parent theme gets updated, any changes you have made to the child theme will be preserved.

For an introduction to child themes, read the WordPress Codex entry on child themes.

The problem is that many people don’t use child themes the right way. If they want to add an element to their website’s header, they will copy the header.php template from the parent theme folder into the child theme folder, and add the new element directly into the child theme’s header.php

This method defeats the whole purpose of child themes, as now any updates to the parent theme’s header.php will not be carried through to the child theme.

So the best way to make changes to your child theme is through the functions.php file. By writing a simple function and applying it to the parent theme’s action hooks, you can easily customise a child theme without modifying any of its template files.

Adding a Facebook Like Button

Let’s go through a real example, where we will add a Facebook Like button to a child theme using a custom action hook.

Here’s a section of the parent theme’s header.php

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<body>
            <header>
                Header Content...
            </header>
            <section id="content" role="main">
                <div class="page-content">
                    Page Content...

Let’s say we want to add the Like button at the top of the .page-content area. We need to add an action hook here, then we will be able to write a function, and hook it into the template at this point.

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<body>
            <header>
                Header Content...
            </header>
            <section id="content" role="main">
                <div class="page-content">
                <?php dj_before_page_content(); ?>
                    Page Content...

So I’ve added the hook dj_before_page_content (I’ve used my initials as a prefix. You may want to use something more meaningful, such as your theme name.)

Before we can use this hook, we need to ‘create’ it by adding the following code to the functions.php file of our parent theme.

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function dj_before_page_content() {
    do_action('dj_before_page_content');
}

Now in our child theme’s functions.php, we can write a function for displaying the Like button:

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function dj_add_fb_like() { ?>
     <fb:like href="" send="true" layout="button_count" width="160" show_faces="false" font="lucida grande"></fb:like>
     <div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=153173954756442&amp;xfbml=1"></script>
<?php }

And all that remains is to hook this function into our parent theme’s newly created action hook. Add the following to the child theme’s functions.php

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add_action('dj_before_page_content', 'dj_add_fb_like');

That’s it! The Facebook Like button will be displayed before your page content and any changes to header.php will be preserved in your child theme.

You can add as many action hooks as you like to a parent theme, to give child theme developers more opportunities to customise their themes in a non-destructive way.

It’s so easy to get lost in all the endless tips, advice and ‘best practices’. Keeping up with the latest fads and buzz words in SEO can be a full-time job in itself. However, there are some things that remain a constant and every now and again I like to remind people about the basics.

So, here’s one for you - ‘Geotargeting’.

It’s well documented that Google places emphasis on local results for local searches. They will also recognise where you are in the World and, depending on your search settings, will usually give you results that correspond to your location.

Google will also help out ‘local’ websites by nudging them up the rankings (when I say local, I mean websites that are either physically hosted or are targeting the country in which you are located).

So, if your website’s content or offering only applies to a single country or territory, it’s a good idea to use geotargeting to make sure that Google gives you a little boost in the local searches.

Here’s how to do it

We can set up geotargeting very easily in Google Webmaster Tools. If you aren’t currently using Webmaster Tools, you should be. It’s extremely useful for anyone doing any sort of SEO work on their website.

Setting up a website in GWT is very easy and these days you can just link to your Google Analytics account to verify your ownership. Here’s a good little tutorial on gettsing started.

Setting up geotargeting is just as easy. To set a geographic target you need to select the website you want to work with. Then just follow these steps:

1. Under Site configuration, click Settings.
2. In the Geographic target section, select the country you want to target.
3. If you want to ensure that your site is not associated with any country or region, make sure the Target users incheckbox is un-checked.

Now, depending on what kind of domain you have, you may be restricted to only one country or territory. For example, if you have a .co.uk domain, the drop-down box will default to ‘United Kingdom’ and you won’t be able to change it. This raises a very interesting debate about which domains are true, global TLD’s (top level domains).

For example, .CO domains we re-released in July 2010 and marketed as International TLD’s. However, .co domains were originally created to serve as a country-specific domain for Colombia. When using a .co domain with Google Webmaster Tools, you are able to geotarget any country in the World. The same goes for your .com’s, .org’s, .net’s etc.

You are not obliged to geotarget any region or country in GWT. If you decide not to check the Target users in checkbox, you are simply leaving your options open so that Google doesn’t particularly associate you with a geographic location.

I use geotargeting on a few of my personal websites and I can’t say I’ve noticed too much of a difference in ranking or in traffic but the tool is there for a reason and, because I’m an immense geek, I tend to comply with Google as much as I can in the hope that I’m rewarded with brownie points.

• Here’s yesterday’s blog post from the official Google blog

What Does this Really Mean for You?

I think Google has the right strategy – but they have to manage it very, very carefully or they risk burning their brand.

The evolution of this “Web3.0″ is still going in the direction I described back in 2005, when I was thinking through a concept for a business networking platform.

• Here’s the original article: The Social Future of Web2.0 / Web3.0 (2005)
• I developed the idea of a “reputation platform” in: My Vision for a Real Workable Web3.0 World (2008)
• When Google + came out, that represented the start of the evolution of Web 3.0.

So What’s Next for Google Search/Google Plus?

OK, we’re starting to see the rich web of relationships between people (and brands) influence search.

This will continue to expand, eventually to include all companies, brands, artists, products and content.

Expect Google’s fingers to find their way into more places.

This is About Your Data, not the Google Brand

Google’s greatest risk is to be perceived as a monopoly, which could generate a backlash like the anti-Microsoft sentiment of the 1990′s and 2000′s.

Notice how many websites you can log into now using your Google ID? This is one of the key areas.

The “+1″ Button is a Crude, Binary Measure of Approval

My vision had something more like a percentage score for the strength of relationships. Will Yes/No be sufficient to help me find the most relevant stuff? I think it may be.

Will we ever see a “negative/low rating” as something distinct from the lack of positive rating? I think it has value.

We’ll also see passive measures of approval, like spending time on a page, buying something etc. It’s all data, it all counts.

Circles… “One ring to rule them all?”

“Circles” signify a different kind of connection. “I relate to this person/brand” rather than “I like this.”

Just imagine if Google’s picture of all your real circles expands to include every interaction you have online (via web, mobile, social, e-commerce etc.).

(This will be the crux of everything for Google. “Power corrupts. Ultimate power corrupts absolutely.”)

Will Google Plus ever catch up with Facebook / LinkedIn / Match.com / Twitter / Reddit etc.?

This is the big question. Not everything Google does persists (Base, Wave etc. – but at least they’re not afraid to pull a failing project).

I think Google Plus will ultimately succeed if it can deliver a better experience than, say, Facebook. Facebook is suffering somewhat from the problem of how to filter the feed of content to its members.

Discounting the fact that users always complain when there’s any update to their favourite social interface, Facebook’s recent attempts to filter were not received warmly. Google Plus is somewhat lighter than Facebook, and – if it can get the balance & pace of convergence right – it could repeat the company’s late-1990s triumph, where Google trumped all the other search engines with an experience that just worked better.

Universal Convergence

The Holy Grail of all this is universal convergence of my data, across search / content / social. This is where Google Plus is aiming. Google has the technology and funds to get there.

As I mentioned above, universal log-in (one of my earliest applications in the Web3 vision) is coming, with Facebook and Twitter competing with Google for the rights to represent us to third-party sites. This could be a significant key to being able to observe behaviour passively.

The Trick Google has to pull off will be – can it find a Win-Win?

Can Google develop ways to access all your data, so that it gives YOU a better experience all-round, without seeming like it gains at anyone’s expense?

I believe, at a high level, this was actually the core of the Web2.0 economy – becoming a party host instead of a broadcaster.

Own the Platform

Microsoft made its money, not by selling PCs or applications, but by owning the platform.

Apple is massively profitable, not just through selling hardware, but by owning the application/music distribution platform.

Google is positioned near enough to the centre of all things, and its brand is generic enough, that it could become the new Web3.0 platform. If it can do that while maintaining “do no evil,” it will tap into a universe of possibilities.

Project management is about knowing…

• What needs to happen
• When (i.e. in what order, and how long it will take)
• By whom

And then making sure it does – or managing change when it doesn’t.

That’s all there is to it.

So you start with a project, which is a goal. I’m using “PWDA Blueprint live”.

Then you just need to ask: “What things need to be true in order for that goal to be true?”

If something isn’t a must, you can choose to ignore it for now.

Do a Project Plan

What I do is scribble the things that need to happen on a piece of paper, like this.

That’s my lo-fi project plan. It shows:

• The things that need to happen (in circles)
• The dependencies between things (arrows point from things that must happen first to things that can then happen next)
• And also estimated timings (small circles)

This is actually an incredibly powerful tool. It shows you what you need to focus on first, how long a project may take to complete, and even things like bottlenecks.

Project management can get an awful lot more complicated than this, but at our level this is all you need.

I recommend you chop up tasks into neat, discrete entities, to keep the overall number of things down. If you have a complex task, you could always break it down into a separate plan, but you may find it helps to keep your overall plan down to something you can fit on one piece of paper.

Critical Path Analysis

Fancy term, very simple concept. The Critical Path means, which are all the things that must happen in order for the goal to be reached?

On my project plan methodology, you just follow all the arrows back from the goal to find the critical path.

On the right hand side, I have some things that could happen in order to recruit new PWDA members, but they’re not essential for launch, because there isn’t an arrow from the last task to the “PWDA Blueprint live” goal.

You can then add up all the timings along the critical path (maybe the longest timeline), to find out how long you need in order to deliver.

So in my example above, all the 6 bubbles on the left side represent my critical path: they must all happen in order for the goal to be delivered. This shows it will take about 3 days to complete the project (although some tasks may be done in parallel).

Managing Resources

If you have different people doing different tasks, you might colour-code your circles, so that you can see which things can happen concurrently.

Or you might put each person (or resource) in a different column on your plan. (Here’s an example of a fancier Role Activity Diagram.)

If you find that one person has a lot of things to do, which stretches out the critical path timeline (love these fancy words), you might consider moving tasks to other resources in order to shorten the overall timeline. Working in pencil on paper, or on a whiteboard, can make this a lot quicker. Avoid using software to do this, unless it’s very simple, or you’re very fluent.

Clars deal in antiques and art and serve clients all round the world.

The site is based on WordPress (with customisations mostly by Dan Johnson).

“Why is this one of our last client sites?”

My goal has always been to make the web a better place. I have worked on some big sites (like Freeserve.com and www.hmrc.gov.uk) but the web is growing so fast that I can’t make much difference working on one website at a time.

That’s why I’ve blogged since 2004, and why 12 months ago I created my Pro Web Design Course – and later the Pro Web Design Alliance, our membership organization – to put real, practical knowledge in the hands of as many people as possible.

In 2012, after I’ve finished my last couple of interesting projects, I’m retiring from doing web design on a project basis.

Here’s how I’ll be making the web a better place in 2012…

My main job is to support my group of Pro Web Design Alliance Elite members. I’ll help them to deliver great-value small business websites to the highest standards. I record the training I provide, and it’s used to train other members. That’s how we’ll make the biggest impact – making more websites that make more money for more small businesses.

If you would like to be part of this growing team of smart marketing-savvy web designers, why not join the Pro Web Design Alliance in 2012?

• Basic membership at just $97/month gives you full access to my Pro Web Design Course – and more premium content!
• Expert members also get first sight of my latest research, and more free resources, in addition to any training and coaching that I record for the Elites. That’s just $149/month.
• Elite membership is $297/month and gives you a LOT more, in addition to the option to work with me on real paying projects.

In my experience, the single most difficult and important skill for a web designer is:

Remembering what you’re doing

It is incredibly easy to get bogged down on the surface level of design, pushing boxes and buttons this way and that around the page until it appears to have perfect visual balance.

This is…

A Complete Waste of Time

Sometimes I’ve spent half a day designing and only rearranged a page design and then rearrange it back again.

The times that I’ve most enjoyed my work have happened when I’ve managed to keep a certain professional distance from the design.

The difference comes when I remember my purpose and have a picture in my mind’s eye of “what success will look like” i.e. my GOAL.

That’s why I encourage you to get clear on what it is you’re working towards, and to keep clear.

The Seven Steps of Think-then-do

• Write down your GOAL and keep it handy as a touchstone
• Refer back to it frequently
• If, at any point, you can’t see the wood for the trees, it’s time to leave it alone
• Take a break, forget all about it, rest your mind, come back, read your statement of purpose touchstone again, get the mental picture back, then look at the design as it is
• Tell yourself out loud what’s right about it and what’s wrong about it
• Tell yourself what you’re going to do, or even better – write it down
• Then – sit down and do it.

With a bit of practice, you’ll soon be a black-belt in Think-then-do.

If you’re like many people, 2012 will bring uncertainty. Unemployment is high, jobs are scarce, and bills just seem to be going up. Plenty of people who do have jobs are feeling uncertain about the future.

If you think it’s time for a change, I would like to help. (Give me 2 minutes of your time to read on, because there’s an amazing offer coming.)

Over the past 13 months, I have helped dozens of people to master web marketing and design, through my Pro Web Design Course.

Friends, this course really, really works! It will transform the way you look at websites, and you’ll discover how easy it can be to make websites that get more traffic and more results.

Guaranteed Success? Really?!

Yes!

I’ve put 15+ years of experience into a six month program. That’s right. Every weekday for six whole months, there’s a video which will help raise your game, show you the skills you need to make websites that work, and coach you to become the success you can be.

There is no course that covers all the areas the Pro Web Design Course will teach you: SEO, Graphic design, Copywriting, Business, Branding, HTML, CSS, WordPress… And there’s something else that is hard to describe – the way of thinking like a successful designer. That’s the key.

It really is the most successful thing I’ve ever done! Here’s a message one new student sent me two weeks ago.

“I purchased Ben’s web design course a while back. This is the third web design course I purchased. It is hands down the best course I have seen. I have learned more from Ben than the other two combined. I still have a way to go but I am very pleased with the course.”

Dave Adkins (23 November 2011)

I’m so confident that I even guarantee that anyone who completes this course and puts its recommendations into action will profit! If you haven’t made more than your money back after 6 months, I’ll just hand your course fee back to you.

Success Story

Fredrik Lange from Sweden took my course, and it literally transformed his life. Here’s what he said when I asked what he’d gotten out of the course.

Far more then I ever expected. I design web sites in a way that even veteran Swedish web designers dont undestand and they cant respond to it. They cannot deliver results, which I can. They make a science of something I can make simple.

It has taken my business to a whole new level and a whole new approach to every detail in my business really.

From selling to producing to follow up – every word – every sale – everything has changed for the better with new understanding of people and marketing.

That is not including the leads to the system seminar which led to affiliate marketing, webinars etc., which I probably would never have found unless I was on the PWDC.

Oh btw, the price is not to high. If anything you could charge more.

Here is a great summary. I used to drive a old Saab and now I drive a new Audi. That just says everything.

Without giving you my life background, but I have no prior education.

I’ve been making web sites as a hobby for 10 years but never known anything about internet marketing.

After “Swedish high school” I went to work as a car mechanic at my dad’s company.

Clients used to just get a web site. These days they know that if they give me one dollar they will probably get 2 or 3 dollars back. They get business which is what its all about.

I was not really a professional so I obviously learned ALOT. But that also says alot about the quality of the course. I skipped everything about HTML, CSS and Photoshop and still I’ve learned more then I could ever expect.

Professionals can learn from it, beginners can learn alot from it. It also puts web design in a brand new perspective that it’s not about development skills.

After watching month one, I emailed 4-5 of my clients and asked to make some changes to their website and I said: “Its just an experiment, but if this makes a good impact on your conversion, is it OK if I charge X dollars?” The course paid for itself from just the impact of one of those “experiments”.

Most of this stuff is fundamental and that’s the part we’re missing.

Everything has changed since the course.

Also not included, the absolutely great “community” feel to the forums and blog posting and everything.

Here is a short list of what has changed because of the course:

• Business is developed from a clients perspective
• Business is beeing done outside Sweden aswell.
• I also makes web site reviewes – and people pay for the opinion
• Every design comes with a “strategy” or a “This is how its gonna work for you”
• When people ask how much it cost to make a web site, the only answer is “How much do you want to earn?”
• When people ask why something is not working I love to be able to say “Because…” rather then “huh.. well I dont know”.
• Marketing is no longer a gamble and I try to make sure my clients feel the same way
• Selling production / programming is no longer as important – more time goes to creating result.

I’ve been planning to make that testimonial video for you but Ben, you’ve kind of made me busy

Fredrik Lange (14 July 2011)

Are You Ready to Transform Your Life?

If you would like a new start, a new career in web design or marketing, I believe you can do it. The world needs great web people, and there just are not enough of them.

So here’s my new-year offer to you…

12 months’ access to the Pro Web Design Course normally costs $975 when you pay in full up-front. (That’s a 25% discount already.)

But I’m going to slash that fee by 50% – for the first 20 people who really want this opportunity. (Note, four places have already gone, maximum 16 left!)

What You Need to Do

1. Go to http://prowebdesigncourse.com/
2. Click through to the “Pricing Options” page
3. Enter this code, which will give you the full 12-months’ access for $487.50…
   Here’s your code >> 94BAE9EBA9

Remember, I guarantee you’ll make that money back when you put my training into action. And you’ll have the support of a great community.

If you know this is right for you, act now! This is limited to the first 20 people only, and once it’s gone it’s gone. (Only 16 left now!)

Good luck!

He taught me that the most important skill for a developer is laziness.

When faced with a problem, the lazy developer will first find out if it has been solved before, and if possible rip off the code.

The hardworking developer will stay late and try to figure out the problem from first principles.  Who would you rather have on your team?

I propose that web designers too should embrace laziness, and stop straining to create the truly original.

We are not independent

We’re all influenced by the designs we see around us all the time. Subconsciously, we spend most of our time trying to do designs that are similar to the ones we like, even when we’re saying we’re trying to be unique and original.

Let’s face it – the web’s so darn big and so exposed, everyone’s looking at everyone else’s, and we’re really all in this together.

True originality is a Siren

A lot of web designers strive to be original, to make each site design unique.

The motivation is to differentiate yourself as a creative artist. This is a worthy goal, but (like the call of the mythological Sirens) the call to continuous creative originality can also be deceiving. It leads many virtuous designs onto the rocks.

The fundamental problem is: most truly new things (ideas, products, or genetic mutations) fail. That is the way of the world.

Aesthetic design is like a virus

Designs have an evolutionary lifecycle, like the lifecycle of a virus.

Advances come through fast, random genetic mutations, some of which give a design/virus an advantage.

Most mutations fail. Occasionally, a strong strain arrives that has a competitive advantage. These successful strains filter through the community in an organic pattern, lots of people get it, and after a while people start to grow immune: it doesn’t have the effect it had initially.

Over time, the strain starts to reach the most remote communities, and can remain in existence for a long time.

This pattern of spread is well known to epidemiologists and biologists.

In terms of aesthetic style – what we notice is that designs that once excited us start to look dull. We’re starting to get immune. The aesthetic-virus loses its power to influence designers, reproduces less frequently, and hence starts to die out. As in Nature’s natural balancing mechanisms, success can bring its own failure.

There’s no getting away from the common cold, and there’s no effective vaccine. In the same way, we as designers can’t inoculate ourselves from the influence of the design we see. We get affected by it all, to differing extents. It’s in our bloodstream. We’re saturated with it. It comes out in everything we do, and sometimes there are those miraculous mistakes or surprises that seem like something new has come into existence. . .

Functional design has a much slower lifecycle

Functional design exists in a basically similar competitive type of environment to aesthetic design, but it has a significantly slower lifecycle.

As with aesthetics, original ideas compete against each other and spread where they are successful. However, the functional world is less chaotic, and changes occur less frequently. Because the mix is less volatile, the strongest functional designs have the opportunity to become conventions. Conventions persist for long periods, until supplanted by a more effective competitor. (Not every more effective competitor gains the upper hand, of course, luck and timing play a part, but the system works very well for the overall benefit of the user community.)

It’s vital that web designers appreciate the differences between functional conventions, and purely aesthetic conventions. The domains of aesthetics and function are as different as the worlds of viruses and human beings. The aesthetic biosphere is faster-moving, faster-changing, more chaotic and more competitive. The functional biosphere also evolves dynamically, but over a longer lifecycle. Changes take place over a greater timespan than in the viral aesthetic world.

Web designers often fall into the trap of reacting to the functional and aesthetic in the same way. As though we have over-sensitive immune systems, we can react to familiar functional (human) designs in the same way as we react to aesthetic (viral) designs – by becoming immune. You can spot where designers can find certain layouts, navigational patterns, terminology or interface controls distasteful or dull, and have attempted to invent alternatives.

In most cases, trying to reinvent functional conventions fails, because most new things do fail. However, when they fail, the consequences can often be more serious than when aesthetic designs fail. Aesthetic considerations are usually most important for site owners, brand managers, and designers. They’re not unimportant, but they’re not vital. Success is only possible when people, users, consumers use a web site successfully. It is at the functional level that users achieve their goals, and when they achieve their goals they are satisfied and start to save bookmarks, build pathways of re-use, and tell friends. This is a natural system where a small competitive advantage can reap huge benefits (think of an online bookstore, think of an online auction site).

A new belief system

It’s time that we as designers admit the following:

• We’re working in a huge, creative common market, where the vast majority of design isn’t original
• Successful (aesthetic and functional) designs are successful for good reasons:they have properties that give them a competitive advantage in their environment
• Our job isn’t to reinvent the rules in every design we produce -our job is to understand the environment, and to put together the strongest products we can
• When we try to do something totally original, we are more likely to fail than to succeed
• The consequences of creative failure can be much more serious in functional areas than in aesthetics

The benefits of kicking the originality habit

• Adherence to standard design principles, standards, conventions and patterns benefits web users.
• It’s quicker, easier, and more profitable.
• It lets you save up your creative energy, and pick your moments to shine, which is also more fun than sweating over reinventing every wheel

Phil Brisk is an advertising writer and creative director with over 20 years experience in broadcast, print and online media.

When you’re designing a web page, it’s easy to get sucked into the detail.

With your ‘design’ head on, concentrating on crafting and perfecting style elements, it’s easy to forget to step back and see things through the eyes of your users.

Your users aren’t interested in giving your design work marks out of 10. They just care about getting all the relevant information, in as little time as possible, and then moving on.

So how do you give your readers the stuff they need in the way that they want?

For a start, you can draw on the experience of traditional print designers.

After all, they’ve been tackling the same challenge for decades – in press ads, in brochures, in leaflets, in mailings. And over that time, they’ve established some pretty sound guiding principles.

1. Remember how brains work

There’s nothing our brains like so much as order and meaning. It’s what they search for from the moment they encounter anything new – and that includes your web page. If brains can’t find the sense and order they need, they soon grow exasperated and give up.

The best print designers know this. They’ve also learned that, the more elaborate the design, the greater the risk of confusion. That’s why they usually steer clear of fussy and showy designs.

Instead, their layouts have a ‘quieter’ feel, with all the individual elements directed at letting the page information unfold as easily as possible. Headlines, subheads, body copy point size, pictures, colours – all are used to ‘signpost’ the route the good designer wants the reader to take through the material placed before him. A route that’s guaranteed to leave him feeling better informed, and better served, at journey’s end.

Does this approach make a difference? You bet it does!

In over 20 years, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen a more restrained, reader-focused design for an ad or brochure outperform a flashier, supposedly more eye-catching alternative. In most cases, the content has remained the same. It’s just the way the content is laid out that’s different.

2. Remember how eyes move

In our culture, we’re trained from the moment we start reading to scan from left to right, starting from the top left of the page and working down to bottom right. We develop a natural rhythm as we do it, with our eyes moving swiftly to the end of each line, then skipping back to the start of the next.

Oh, and by the way, our eyes don’t like to have to constantly readjust their focus. It just leads to strain.

So far, so obvious.
But it’s the obvious that’s often overlooked, particularly by designers who want to ‘create an impression’ by doing something radical, such as running the main headline around the page margin, or by making interesting shapes with the body copy.

I could go on, of course. I could talk about startling use of contrasting colours. Or reversing out large chunks of text. Or running it over a picture. Or experimenting with lots of different typefaces and point sizes. Or dotting illustrations all over the page.

All these stylistic touches may look really cool. And result in something you’d love to hang on your wall. But that’s not the goal, is it? Your aim is to make life easier for your reader.
Yet, too often, the kind of visual tricks listed here do exactly the reverse. They disrupt natural eye movement. They strain the eyes by asking them to jump around the page, from element to element, with the need for lots of re-focusing along the way. They frustrate the brain in its instinctive quest for logical order and meaning.

I’ve seen many over-excitable, over-designed print layouts fail miserably when they leave the rarefied atmosphere of the design studio and enter the real world where the readers live. And, equally, I’ve seen genuine commercial wonders worked when those same layouts are placed in wiser hands.

In one case, for instance, a loss-making full-page press ad featuring a large slab of reversed-out body copy was transformed by the simple act of running the text in conventional black on white.
The freshened-up ad – with nothing else changed – then brought in over a quarter million pounds-worth of orders on its very first outing.

On another occasion, I saw a product brochure achieve a 543% – yes, 543% – increase in response after a design ‘re-vamp’. The main changes were to switch from a sans serif to serif typeface (easier to read) and to remove a number of small pictures from the right margins of the pages (on the grounds that, in this position, they might be distracting the reader’s attention at the wrong moment and preventing his eye from returning back left to start reading the next line).

“Fine,” you may think. ”But that’s print. What’s it got to do with designing for the web?”

Actually, everything.

Because what’s been happening design-wise in print – the successes and the failures – is being repeated right now on-line.
Just take a look at a dozen or so web pages, selected at random, and I think you’ll see what I mean.

3. Above all – remember you’re here to communicate, not decorate

If you only want one guideline, make this it. Because, frankly, for all the reasons already given, there really is nothing more irritating to readers than design for design’s sake.

This isn’t to say your web page shouldn’t use all the design elements and special touches that create style, pace, flair, excitement, intrigue, emotion.
Of course it should! But these elements must always be relevant and appropriate, and not distract from a clear, coherent whole effect.

Remember this, and you’ll vastly increase your chances of creating effective online design - a design that draws attention to the message, not to itself - a design that will serve your web site visitors rather than dazzle them.

In my experience, this is good business sense. Especially if you want to turn those visitors into customers. Because they can’t give you money while they’re rubbing their eyes or scratching their heads.