Make your website easy to read and navigate - Fun Serious Creative Agency

A website’s interface will make it easy to read and navigate if designed appropriately. There are many different elements included in the user interface (UI) of a webpage. All pages of a website need to be well-linked and uniform for easy navigation and consistency.

User interface (UI) design is about the visual elements of a website; the icons, graphics, and the text.

the user experience (UX) design is about how your visitors engage with your website.

Let’s see how UI affects the UX of your website!

A font that can be read on any device

Balancing these two is paramount to help create a great website with user friendly navigation and engagement.

Your visitor can access your webpage from any device. You need to consider if your font is legible on laptops, mobiles, tablets and any other common devices.

There are some universal rules to follow for this, for e.g body text fonts ideal size is usually 12pts. It’s the same size used for standard documents. Never use a cursive or stylish font for the body text as they can be difficult to read in large chunks.

Although boring, Times New Roman or Arial are some very user friendly and common, legible font choices. You may use stylised text for elements other than the body. These could be for headings or even just for your brand logo design.

Be mindful of colour contrast

The background and foreground colour help make a website much easier to read. Light blue text over black is something you wouldn’t want for example. Ensure to avoid using black as the background colour as it can be strainful to the eye. White is the most common choice for a background as it’s clean and comfortable on the eye. Black text over this background is also the most legible.

Clear and concise menus with categories and sub-categories

Never use long descriptions for menus. Be clear, short and concise about what your main menus and submenus are. Take the time to organise submenus if your website has a lot of pages. Easy-to-understand categories allow the visitor to reach the desired web page easily. This improves the overall flow and experience of your website.

Provide information in the header and the footer

The footer should be the same on every webpage. This provides easy navigation to your website visitors. The footer should link to other important web pages on your website. This is the space where you see links to pages like, ‘Contact’, ‘About Us’, ‘FAQs’ and any other important resources. Do not provide links to other pages in this area. Instead, dedicate it to your brand and business. Moreover, adding a call-to-action (CTA) above the footer on every webpage. These are not buttons, but plain text with hyperlinks to other content areas on your page. Adding a CTA helps website visitors learn more about your content and services.

Check alignments and proper representation of elements

All text boxes should be aligned with one another. The headlines and body text should begin and end at the same point. In the same way, other elements such as ads and banners shouldn’t be distracting. Icons and buttons should invite users to engage with them. Your users should know what’s clickable and what isn’t. To ensure this, the use of a box is a rule of thumb. You can also create your visual language and maintain it throughout the website e.g by using shapes like a circle to represent it as a button.

One final thought…

A website that’s easy to read and navigate needs planning from the start. Maintain your brand’s identity while looking at your website through your visitor’s eyes. To ensure there’s easy navigation, conduct walkthroughs of your website and fix difficult UI elements. Another option is prior to pushing it live, sending it to a few people for some of your own research, so you can get their opinion and ideas on both the UI and UX.