Web Design- A Minimalist Approach: Decide How Minimal Is Too Minimal For Your Web Design

When you are trying to reduce something to its purest form or bare essentials, we term it as minimalism. Minimalism in web design aims to produce a site from the very basics and focuses on design that would help the users to complete their tasks as quickly as possible. Three factors subject, usability and balance are considered while designing a website. Make sure that your web design comprises of all the 3 factors in order to maintain a balanced design well appreciated by your clients. Here are some facts and arguments to help you decide how minimal is too minimal for your web design.

Advantages of minimalism

The demands of modern web design are increasing with the growing trends. We begin with content, brand and that’s the end of it. We can create a website just by adding what is necessary.

Minimalist websites require very less coding and hence have fewer JavaScripts, CSS rules, images, HTML elements, etc, thus reducing the front end load. This means there is increased front end performance and hence improved usability and rich user experience. Web design becomes more free and open if you proactively leave certain features which are not absolutely necessary, thus reducing distractions. Web design needs a strong understanding of balance, typography, and white space. Also, the site’s content is emphasized without external distractions if you follow minimalism.

 

Usability of the website

With the craze of working towards minimalism, usability of the site is sometimes sacrificed. Just as content is important, usability necessary to support the content is equally important. Just keep as much as it is necessary and discard the rest, taking usability into consideration. It gets even worse to handle minimalism as and when the web technology starts growing tangibly. Certain features like company logo, menu icons for navigation can never be discarded even if it comes under minimalism because, doing so will adversely affect the web design and confuse the users.

Your Website can still look good

With all these reductions as per minimalism rules, you might be wondering what would happen to your website’s look and feel. Your website will still look good as you don’t have to reduce to the barest essentials. Many minimalist sites look simple and beautiful because of fewer distractive elements.

Is there a good reason for designing minimalism?

Companies like VivoGroup have been taking design initiatives to follow minimalism for good reason. Simple looking web designs have much more stored in them. Minimalism shouldn’t be confusing or enigmatic as this is not the actual goal why we are designing the sites this way. However, if the site has optimal features, less complicated GUI, this is what we need. Most important is to understand the design goals of minimalism which is to enhance readability, improve usability, navigation and create an excellent user experience.

Is the design too minimal?

You must understand the design goals to effectively communicate the information. If you use a wrong reason to decide if your web design uses minimalism or if you sacrifice usability, then your design will be very minimal. Web design engineers should regularly keep a check on such issues.

Featured images:
  • License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/015/2/5/flower_2_free_reign_inspiration_and_design_by_misfitstwinkle-d5qee2d.png

Brisbane web designing company has helped me a great deal in deciding and designing my website considering minimalism rule of thumb and I have extremely benefited from it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.