02/20/2025
This is it!
My favourite video of today!
A great video on web design by Chris Misterek
Why I liked it:
⚫ "Fancy websites impress designers, not visitors."
I’ve replaced several beautiful, complex websites with clean, simple layouts focused on informing visitors and guiding them to take action—resulting in much higher conversion rates and subsequently higher search-engine ranking.
When people look for, say, a roofer, they’re not searching for a “wow” factor. They just need to know:
1. Does this company sell what I need?
2. Do they sell it to me?
3. How do I buy or contact?
⚫ The video offers great insights on the (partially outdated) F-pattern scanning method, which suggests visitors start at the top left, scan right, then back left and downward—forming an “F” shape. While mobile browsing and modern web design have challenged this, I don’t think it’s obsolete. Content-heavy pages, especially on desktop, can still benefit from it.
(These principles also apply to alternative layouts like the Z-pattern, which wasn’t mentioned but follows a similar idea.)
Personally, I prefer the layered cake design pattern, especially for mobile. Ultimately, the best approach depends on the website, audience, and even the specific page. There are few hard rules in design.
⚫ I also appreciate the video highlighting accessibility, a topic I’m passionate about. Web accessibility ensures a site is usable for people who need accommodations in areas like sight, mobility, and cognitive processing.
The video focuses on colour contrast, a common issue I see in small business websites. Poor contrast—like navigation text blending into a background image or low-contrast button text—can make reading difficult even for those without impairments. For people with CVD (colour vision deficiency) or macular degeneration, it’s even worse.
Bonus tip: You can get away with lower contrast if your font size is larger.
I aim for WCAG 2.2 AA compliance, which tools like WebAIM and Coolors help verify. The video also shares a great trick with Coolors that I’ll be using when picking website colour palettes!
My suggestion:
Watch this video and subscribe to the creator! https://youtube.com/ took a 2-year break and just started posting again—let’s support them so they keep making great content!
https://youtu.be/1NTKwpAVcHg?si=Its64josQcxpoT69
It was tough but I fit 10 years of web design expertise in a 7 minute video. Turns out you know just about everything you need to know about designing websit...
