The Art of Website Design
I recently redesigned the site that you are currently on. Here are some tips I have developed to help you master the art of website design based on my long hours and hard lessons.
-
Identify your key audiences for the site. I’ll start by saying that I have tried to design my website several times and always run against roadblocks. So, I began this time by watching a website design workflow video by CharliMarieTV. She talked about identifying your main audiences for the site, and I realized my audience was two groups of people – people who are interested in purchasing my products, and those who are interested in my content and art classes.
-
Create a mind map of all the pages you would like to have, and then a minimal viable product (MVP) or the version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. CharliMarieTV, as well as many other designers, talk about doing this. In this instance, since I am currently using Redbubble to sell my greeting cards and art prints, I chose to keep that as my main site, while I worked on creating this beauty.
-
Develop a mockup of your website pages before you begin. Trying to create a website without having a clear idea of what you want will lead me to waste a lot of time. I know, I have wandered down many a hole in the past trying to figure out how to both design and implement in WordPress at the same time. The main thing that increased my speed and effectiveness this time around was using PowerPoint to layout my page design and color scheme prior to learning how to input it onto the website.
While the initial draft was very rough, it allowed me space to research and identify the items that I really liked in other people’s websites, as well as conceptually understand what might be the best types of graphics based on my content. Then, when I went to design my site, I knew the core elements I wanted and how I wanted to organize them. I was able to figure out how to implement most of my desired items using this approach.
-
Watch youtube tutorials of people who walk you through setting up your site on your desired platform. I was really struggling to find a template that would allow me to sell original art pieces on my website until I searched on youtube. There I found numerous videos by various YouTubers who walked me through the whole process from start to finish. This youtube video was particularly helpful in walking me through how to set up the template for WordPress with eCommerce.
-
Seek feedback from friends and family. After I finished creating my site, I shared it with a few key friends who navigated through the site and told me any issues they were having with it. That helped me identify anything I might have missed before sharing with everyone on my Instagram account.
These are the tips that really helped me have a smoother and easier process in creating a personal website. Let me know if these tips work for you!
Text content
