1. Fresh, Crisp and Clean Layout

Think Zen. It?s tranquil. It?s balanced. It?s refreshing. Websites employing web 2.0 design is a breath of fresh air to the clutter-styled content of most websites for many years.

Don?t overwhelm your visitors by presenting content in an un-suave way. How many times have we been discouraged to read a website that has too much going on, all at the same time?

Instead, draw visitor?s attention by presenting one meaningful content at a time. It pays to show courtesy. It?s delightful to visitors when you just breeze them through what you want to say rather than shoving everything down their throats.

2. Bright and Cheery Colors

If you haven?t noticed, a cheerful aura has somehow been ushered into the Internet. Web 2.0 sites like Flickr, Odeo, Flock and others have the habit of using bright colors.

Aside from inspiring a playful and happy mood to visitors, use them to draw attention to important elements of the page. Colors also create solid sections to organize content into header, main content, navigation, footer and other parts.

3. Rounded Shapes

The stiff and formal, edgy and techie corporate look is out. In contrast, un-boxed shapes create an atmosphere of friendliness and being-yourself. In addition, the design tends to look creative and youthful.

4. Vectorize and Take Down the Stock Photos

Almost all websites that has a product to offer uses photos of wide-grinning people in corporate jumpsuits. You?ll find fewer and fewer of these photos in Web 2.0 sites nowadays. Some still use stock photos but they are mostly exhilarating views of nature.

Instead use smart vector shapes for icons, logos and web elements as imagery to your site.

5. Readable Text

Gone are the days of the smaller your text, the higher the techno-rating your website would have. Start using large text now. It?s like speaking clearly compared to mumbling your words.

The proper use of typeface size while bolding important parts like headings is like taking your visitors by the hand to guide them on how to read your content. It creates good impression when you make visitors feel that you designed your website for them.

6. Simple and Obvious Navigation

Navigating through your website should be as simple and obvious to a 5 year old. It should clearly show where they are now and where else can they go. Once again use color and text size to emphasize links in your site. Provide clear instructions as well on how to use features and options.

7. Polished

Interfaces of Web 2.0 sites are simply cool. The aesthetic feels just right. Through proper use of gradients, reflection and 3D render you can create web elements that are almost real to the touch and invites visitors to just click.

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Web Design is an area which can be extremely important to the success of a website. It’s fair to say that most people who design their first website don’t do a good job. They may think that there design is good enough to upload to the web but in actual fact the only reason they think that is because they were the ones who designed it. This is a common issue which most amateur designers experience but it’s very important to keep practicing and keep telling yourself I can do better than this. It may sound cliche but practice does make perfect and the more times you redesign your website layouts, the better you will get.

It’s not impossible to design a great website on your first attempt but you shouldn’t expect to. Please read the rest of this article and take note of the tips and advice given and you will be on your way to designing a website that is nice to look at and easy for people to use.

Keep it Simple Most people who start off designing a website think that more is better. That’s completely wrong and will turn your visitors away. Do not have lots of images, background music, flaming text and a hundred different colors fonts. All this stuff will increase the loading time of your website and believe it when I tell you that most people get impatient after waiting more than 10 seconds.

If you don’t believe me look at every popular website, take Google for example! All the site consists of is a plain white background, a nice logo, a few links and the search box. Some may say Google’s design is poor but experienced designers would say to you that it’s a nice design. Google became popular because it provided better content and loaded much faster than competing search engines at the time. Sites such as eBay, hotornot.com and papal all have simple designs but still look professional. That’s exactly what you should be aiming for with your website layouts.

Here is a more exhaustive list of design tips you should follow:

Don’t use frames Don’t have background music Don’t have too many images Stick to one main font for your text Don’t use too many colors for your layout, stick with 2 or 3 main colors If using flash, don’t overuse it. Don’t use things like flaming text, animated gif images they look tacky Don’t use bright text on a bright background and vise versa Don’t make your text size too large or too small Arial and Verdana are the two most popular website fonts Don’t make the width of your website too large test it on multiple sized monitors and on several screen resolutions

The above points are very important. Please remember that having an excellent design is really no better than having a good design. However a good design is much better than having a bad design. The truth is that it’s your content or website concept that will determine the success of your website but having a bad design can affect your chances of success, so take note!

About the Author

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Website: http://myacetemplates.net/design.pl/photo-law.html/website.html

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