Design is key!

When it comes to web pages, good design is just as, if not more important, than the actual content of the web page. When a web page does not have a good design, it makes the website look less professional, thus undermining its credibility. This is an especially big problem in the journalism field, as credibility is the only thing a journalist has. Once a journalist looses credibility, there is no longer any reason for people to listen to him or her, and that means the journalist is out of a job.

According to “The Non-Designer’s Web Book” by Williams and Tollett, there are four main principles of good design. The first principle is alignment. This means that on a web page everything should have the same alignment. If the title is centered, then everything should be centered. It is not good to mix and match alignments. The second is proximity. This is the idea that if things are related to each other, then they should be physically close to one another on the web page. The third principle is repetition. Repetition serves as a unifying force for a web site. If all of the separate pages of the same site have a similar theme, than it is easy for people to tell it is part of the same web site from the same company. It also helps keep people from having to relearn how to navigate each page when they click on a new link. User-friendly web sites get a much more positive response and will keep people coming back. Finally, there is the principle of contrast. Contrast is a way of directing people how and what to read on the web site. If things are bigger and bolder, they are clearly the focus of that page and people will read them first. Contrasting colors is also very important, as if there are too many things that are very close in color, then it makes the page very hard to read, an makes nothing stand out from the rest of the items. Good contrast is easy on the eyes and is a great way of organizing information.