What’s The One Thing you Look for in a Design?

Posted on 27. Mar, 2008 by Adam in Design

When you visit a website, what is the most important thing that you need to see to be fully satisfied? Forget about first impressions. Spend some time and evaluate. Step back and look at the big picture. What do you want to see there?

With the upcoming design of Blogtrepreneur, there were a few things in particular I wanted to accomplish. Especially with a site of this proportion and the ideas bouncing around, the coding of the site is half the battle, if not more, but it’s Design Thursday, so we’ll be focusing on the visual elements.

Consistency?

Looking at an entire site, this is always an important factor. Something designers often take for granted when designing blogs because it’s something so easy to accomplish. Usually you’re only using one main stylesheet anyway. On larger sites with a spectrum of features, things can get a little on the confused side. PayPal and Microsoft have been guilty of this in the past.

But for me, I don’t think this is going to do it for me. It’s always nice, but this is something that should come standard with a design. Like you expect power windows on your new car, you expect your designer to create something consistent.

Stunning Design?

I’ve had some people say the sheer quality of the design and the beauty it exudes are main factors in the overall judgement. While the huge presence of nice graphics (or lack thereof, it goes both ways) is great, I think this is more of a first impression kind of thing.

Straight up visual authority could make an argument as an immensely important factor to what makes one believe it is satisfactory. On the contrary, I believe some of the best designs can be actually quite ugly.

Holding the First Impression?

Some sites make great first impressions but die after you scroll a little. This sort of tags back to the two prior points of great design and consistency. One thing I always worry about is that the page looks just as good halfway down, right to the bottom, or anywhere for that matter.

Maintaining that level of impressiveness throughout a whole site is, well, impressive! One could argue being able to do that would make the whole thing what it is. By “what it is” (something I’ve used a few times now), I’m referring to the final product. Good, bad? However it turned out, that is what it has become.

I Want you to Keep Looking

The perfect design, in my mind, does not allow you to pinpoint that one thing that makes it what it is. Behind the scenes it’s part planning and part execution. That’s a pretty standard equation to success, but let me put it this way:

Plan each section, each feature. Have an idea for the author’s page, the archives, the category’s page, the comments, everything. Create variety by basically doing everything. Make a plan and let it all fall into place. In other words, know what you want and go get it.

Whether the site changes colours from one section to the next, or the page layout is different, these are the simple things that make users want to keep looking. From a designer’s perspective, that’s great. It works out for everyone else involved, too, including the owner and advertisers.

What’s Your Thing?

From what I’ve gathered, what I look for is rather obscure. Maybe you want something more simple, or even your aesthetic opinions are shallow (as they should be, no?). It’s a Thursday, which means the highlight of the article should be the comments. Add your thoughts!

Design Thursdays on Blogtrepreneur are brought to you by freelance web designer Connor Wilson.

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10 Responses to “What’s The One Thing you Look for in a Design?”

adnan

27. Mar, 2008

Awesome post Connor, and in fact, there is always 1 thing I look for in a great design – how all the elements piece together.

The top dogs like Problogger, ZenHabits and FreelanceSwitch all have a way of consolidating their posts, their advertising spaces, and their goals and objectives.

In a really fabulous design, elements such as the RSS subscription are blended into the content but at the same time are appealing and great at getting people to sign on the dotted line.

Advertising blocks too in a perfect design, aren’t obtrusive for the reader, but yet offer the maximum impact for the person footing the advertising bill.

Of course, this sense of “fitting things together”, coupled with a breaktaking visual design is a real knock-out blow for me. If this can be coupled with great, regular content, then I’m already subscribed.

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts, and hopefully when the new design of Blogtrepreneur rolls out, you guys will be able to see just how much time Connor and I have spent making each section absolutely perfect!

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Connor Wilson

27. Mar, 2008

That’s a great point, and it’s one of those things that kind of contributes to everything good about a website. You want to see the great design, coupled with awesome details while nothing looks out of place.

All that leads to the user wanting to look around more, and all the benefits that come with that.

Another way to look at this is how that one thing improves everything, like having everything pieced together perfectly.

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Steven Snell

27. Mar, 2008

I agree that sometimes I like a design but I can’t put my finger on why I like it.

Also, to me navigation and readability are very important. I think navigation is something that could really be improved on most blogs (and I’m looking into this for my own). We get stuck in the typical blog linking strategies like a list of categories, an about page, maybe some popular posts or recent posts. In most cases I don’t feel it is well thought out.

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Tom Beaton

28. Mar, 2008

I would say it is a number of things. First impressions go a long way. I am guilty of judging many a book by it’s cover so to say. At the same time though, a great headline can make me overlook the design.

Once using a site, I need to be able to see what is going on and navigate with ease or else the attention span will struggle.

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Vinh Le

28. Mar, 2008

It is all about the bling bling and how pimped out it is for me…

In all seriousness though, I think most designers got their eyes trained from working on designs so much that they can pretty much instantly tell if the design is great or not. Malcolm Gladwell does a great job of covering this phenomenon in his book “Blink.” If you read tipping point, then this book is a must read.

Great article.

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Bill

29. Mar, 2008

I think for most people we might know what to look for in a good design, but we know a good one when we see it.

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Erik

30. Mar, 2008

One thing I always look for in a design is hoping I don’t have to look for anything. As weird as that sounds.. When I go to a website thats attractive I often think nothing of it except (I like it). Sites that are not well put together often enter my mind more.

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Stefanie

01. Apr, 2008

I agree, Erik. I’ve played around with a lot of templates that make me wonder if the designer has ever even read a blog. Attractiveness is kind of worthless if you can’t find anything.

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Zach

02. Apr, 2008

I’m really into the simple yet web 2.0 look. I love a unique design, and a clustered look really turns me off.

Overall though I think first impression is the most important thing.

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