10 principles of Excellent web design: innovation, practicality and beauty

He was able to make a revolution in the way we use home appliances, and now we still have it as a design inspiration for the modern world, the best example of which is Apple. The core features of many of Apple's best-selling products are based on the design principles of Dieter Rams.

Dieter Rams's most famous design idea is the 10 principles of good design, which are often used to make good designs or classify them. These principles include issues that designers need to take into account when creating projects, but these principles apply most to industrial design, because Dieter Rams has made extraordinary work in this field and has come up with these inspirations.

These principles are not inflexible precepts, they are not inflexible, these are just guidelines that help locate a good design.

In the middle of the 70, Rams began to hold lectures on the design, and proposed six principles, he has been improving over the years, in the middle of the 80, these principles "upgraded to" 10, and now is still respected.

So why not apply these 10 principles to the pixel world? Why not apply them to web design and discuss what good web design is?

With 8 years of experience in web design and background in industrial design, I humbly apply these 10 principles to web design and make them better suited to web design based on my epiphany.

1. Excellent design should be innovative

The first principle is also the foundation of web design-innovation. Designers must be aware that innovation can play a very important role in the design of excellent web designs. Here are two basic points:

1. In terms of UI and picture design, you should treat each project with an innovative mindset and critical thinking, and try to broaden your mind and explore other branches. Use creativity as an innovative tool to stand out from the crowd.

2. Keep in touch with the new people around you, whether it's a picture-generating tool or a novel programming language.

Management innovation is a daunting task, because it is always evolving, but keep an open mind, try new ways to create, only like this you can have a variety of ways to make good web design.

2. Excellent design makes the product more practical

What is a usability site, and how do you make your site available?

This is a bit tricky to describe, because the usability of the site is different for different people, but I want to emphasize three aspects of the usability site.

1. Help visitors browse the site: Make it as easy as possible for visitors to find what they are looking for, and the details of the user interface and the display of the information can make the site useful.

2. Practical content: The content of the site is the most useful part of the site, if you do not attach importance to the content of the site, you will easily lose the promotion of a Web site practical magic weapon.

3. The last point of the usability site is how you encode your site because you need to consider the site optimization and performance aspects to make the site practical.

3. Excellent design is full of beauty

For a website, beauty is the balance between visual detail and practicality. An aesthetically pleasing web site not only provides the user with an extraordinary experience, but also presents relevant content.

From a design-oriented perspective, there are three points that can help designers make good and aesthetically pleasing web design.

1. Color: Careful treatment of color schemes-they bring fragrance to all pages. You can try using unused combinations, but you need to consider the meaning of each color. If you are going to provide different experiences for different devices, the colors displayed on the display will not be better controlled than the colors on paper or on an object.

2. Grid, Space: In the organization of the basic structure of the site, you need to determine how users see the content of the site-in order or grid, to treat the blank parts to be especially careful. The different dimensions/symmetry/order of the information determine how people interpret the content.

3. Layout: The way in which text is displayed and the choice of fonts is more important than most people think, and the ability to read and emphasize different content depends on the layout you choose for your site.

4. Excellent design makes the product easier to understand

To make sure the site is understandable, you need to be aware of the purpose, and the site is designed for certain goals. You need to make sure that your site is easy to use, and how effortlessly you can reach their goals for users.

For example, if you have an online shop, the goal is to sell, so your design should be as concise as possible, careful to improve the browsing experience of the goods and the way visitors exit. The site is best at a glance.

5. Excellent design is humble

Modest sites must pay attention to two major points:

1. From a purely design-oriented standpoint, Mies van der Rohe has this very good maxim: "Less is more." "Indeed, it is easy for designers to get lost in decorating and picture details, and remember not to do that!" keep the content vivid--visitors must understand the details of the content as much as possible, and then understand the detail of the image, creating as much as possible an experience of browsing the web, rather than confusing visitors The design should be neutral.

2. On the other hand, it is the auxiliary function, when designing the website, you must know the basic rules of the website accessibility.

London's design consultant Bibliothèque and producer Vits recently made a 7-color A0 poster to celebrate Rams's 10 principles on good design.

6. Excellent design is honest

What is an honest website? For a website, the so-called honesty is to keep the visitors open attitude, always give them a few options to choose, do not overemphasize the importance of your design.

For example: as much as possible to clarify the purpose of an option or button, or use the error message to indicate the content of the error.

An honest Web site often provides tools to help users achieve their goals, a range of choices, visual links, and other hints that give users all of their possible needs.

7. Excellent design to withstand the test of the years

The question of whether the site will stand the test of years is debatable, but the principle can be applied effortlessly to design trends. In other words, there are always the latest trends in web design. Don't just follow the trend, not consider the fundamental changes in your design.

The content of the site must be kept up to date, but the main structure should be sustainable, so use iterative design to enhance the visual experience and use technology to

In web design, "sustainable" is somewhat different from "sustainable" in reality. The most important thing is to make the user like your design, you must always adapt to your work, otherwise, these two will lead to redesign, in our time, every two years this situation.

8. Excellent design considerations and attention to every detail

This principle, as the name suggests, puts all your energies into the design, just as it is the most important part of your life. Try to explore your ideas from different angles, and carefully design the experience of browsing the site.

9. Excellent design attaches importance to the environment

This is a bit difficult to do, I only point out the optimization method. When you design a website, do not drastically reduce your carbon footprint and keep the rainforest as much as possible. But you have to remember a few things:

1. Reduce the size of the page.

2. Using a web-optimized picture

3. Use the best possible way to optimize the code so that your browser uses less loss to properly display your site.

10. Excellent design is concise

Finally, and as necessary, this principle determines the quality of the design-always keep in mind the purpose of your idea to create a transparent and easy-to-use system. When designing a website, focus on its main function and keep it concise so that users can understand it better.

Make the content vividly visible, the best design is what you feel, not what you support in theory.

One of the most important messages conveyed in these principles is that we are designed for human purposes. This is the ultimate goal of our website and we have to keep this in mind when creating new projects. As Rams said, "designers are loyal followers of users", we must create rationality, but also perceptual works.

With the knowledge of Dieter Rams's work, you will spontaneously feel excited and begin to create stunning works, regardless of the field of design.

This is how I apply these principles from one of the most famous designers of the 20th century to the new design field, digital domain and web design.