Web design: Even with a checklist, it is hard

After spending days working out my e-learning page designs and the Moodle splash page design, I’m ever so glad this isn’t my full-time job! It’s enough to figure out what goes in the middle of the page, let alone dealing with site design, CSS (which I thought would be a snap to implement), anticipating all the possible navigational elements you might need, etc.

I’ve never had to design a site from scratch, so thinking through all the possible navigational elements and deciding how to categorize the content is a big job. And design is decidedly not one of my strong points. I get hung up on colours and fonts, and lose site of the bigger issues. I’m thankful for the ever-growing list of WordPress templates available that allow us to update our sites and fiddle with only the small elements of the design.

However, the thing I find more helpful than checklists and tips is looking at the sites I like and analyzing what it is that makes them easy and appealing to use. Looking at professional sites like the BBC it’s interesting to see how they deal with large amounts of information an multiple graphics.  The aforementioned Wordpress templates can also be good guidance for simple sites. But in the end, I think it’s just practice. Which I obviously need more of!