Website development is an important area of computer and Internet technology that often does not receive enough attention. Maybe that’s because the challenges are often apparent only later or even in retrospect. In theory, the process of creating a website and an appealing user interface sounds simple enough, but in practice it becomes clear that making things simple and clean yet functional is no cakewalk. Yet this is critical. People judge a website and base their future use of it on how attractive it is visually and how easy it is to use.
The complexity of computers and the Internet and the wealth of tools available may compel designers to cram as much as possible into their website development and design, but that would be a mistake. A website that is complex visually is overwhelming. However carefully it has been laid out, intuition flies right out the window when there is clutter. People don’t know where to look for the options they want and they are less motivated to investigate because it all feels like too much effort. As such, simplicity absolutely is the golden standard.
This is not to say that websites must be dumbed down – there is a difference between simple and shallow. It is possible with enough creativity and ingenuity to fit a tremendous amount of functionality into a simple presentation. Artful use of menus and a close awareness of graphical layout go a long way towards accomplishing this. The key is to identify what is most important – what is the thing a new visitor to the site is most concerned with? That is what needs to be most prominent – all the other tools and data and so on can be made available in the background, for those who are sufficiently invested to want those things. For instance, if your website is mostly a comic strip, put that front and center.