Whilst website design today often takes advantage of trends and innovations, there are still some elements which are still put to use. These conventional elements have become so familiar to users that it’s in your best interest to know them and make use of them. Even if you want your website to appear as innovative as can be, it still pays to stick to certain conventional design elements which have been proven to work. Here’s a look at the most useful – and most familiar – conventional design elements every website should have.
What you should remember
As tempting as it may be to go all creative and ‘out of the box’ with your website’s design so you can be unique and memorable, it’s still a good idea to take advantage of certain conventional designs. If you don’t, it’s like building a car and then putting the steering wheel at the back, which is definitely confusing (and ultimately useless).
The good news is that you already have a good idea of what users may like. With the information that you already have, you can make it much easier for your website visitors to navigate through your site. Following is a list of the most useful conventional elements you should include:
- The navigation bar
A very important and conventional design element – something which has worked for years and is still being utilised today – is the placement of the navigation bar. The navigation bar should always be placed at the top of your website pages. At the very least, if you want to be a bit more creative, you can place it on the left side, but nowhere else. Don’t make it hard for your visitors to go through your website – it should be as easy and natural as possible for them to find the information they are looking for.
- Your logo
Another design element which has remained unchanged for years is the placement of the logo. The logo is often placed in the centre of a website page, or at the top left corner. Again, don’t be tempted to place your logo at an unconventional location – the eyes of visitors are always drawn to the top left side of a page first, so make sure to optimise this space. This is confirmed by experts such as Xist2 web design in Oxford. One more point: it’s best to have a clickable logo so your visitors can easily go back to your homepage if they want.
- The links
When it comes to conventional design elements, having website links which can change appearance or colour when visitors hover over the links has always worked, and for good reason. Take advantage of this as much as you can.
