If you are planning to develop a new website, then you must be familiar with all the UI/UX basics. For instance, without a good website design, chances are that your business might not thrive. Thankfully, web design is quite an interesting concept that you can master in no time. Therefore, to help you learn how to web design, I have come up with this beginner-friendly post, covering all the basics.
What is Web Design All About?
As the name suggests, it is a principle for designing websites for different platforms (like desktop or mobile). Website design is all about developing the user interface of the product and considering its UI/UX aspects. To achieve this, we work on the layout of the website, its design entities, color schemes, and overall functionality.
When you work on web design for any product, just make sure that your product would achieve the following things:
- Usability
- Functionality
- Accessibility
- Simplicity
- Engagement
- Branding
- Consistency
Web Design Principles: Custom Design or Templates
While working on web design, you would encounter two methodologies – custom design and templates.
In custom design, we create the overall website design without using any existing layout. Therefore, we create a unique design for the website from scratch while working on all the design elements individually. Although custom web design will take more time, it will let you meet your requirements in a better way and would create a one-of-a-kind product.
On the other hand, you can also learn how to web design using any existing template. A template would already have the basic layout for the web design that you can reuse and further customize as per your requirements. It will save your time and resources but would not create a unique solution.
Why you Should Use a Web Design Tool?
If you want to make your job easier, then consider using a web design tool like Wondershare Mockitt. A web design application will make things easier with the range of its existing templates that you can readily use and customize. Apart from that, you can also create your web design from scratch with the existing widgets available in Mockitt.
The best part is that Mockitt will let you create a clickable prototype for your website, letting you test it easily. Later, you can just send the prototype for web development by exporting it in the preferred format.
How to Web Design with these Simple Steps?
It doesn’t matter what kind of web design tool you are working on, but the overall website design process is quite the same. If you also want to learn how to web design, then follow these steps:
1. Problem identification
Before you work on the website design, you need to identify the issues that your prospective users are facing. This will let you work on the type of product you want to create.
2. Define the product
Once you have identified the issues, you can come up with the basic ideas for web design and explain the features that it would offer.
3. Ideation and Prototyping
Great! Now, you can brainstorm with your team about the overall development of the website. For this, it is recommended to create a working prototype of the product using a reliable web design tool. You can come up with a clickable high-fidelity prototype of the website that would look like the final product.
4. Testing, Reworking, and Implementation
After having the final prototype ready, you can test it from the perspective of the user. You can later rework the prototype and further ideate the web design principle. Furthermore, you can keep testing the prototype and can later forward it for the development and implementation of the product.
Top 5 Web Design Tools Recommended by Experts
It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or a pro, you can consider using the following web design tools to meet your requirements.
1. Wondershare Mockitt
Wondershare Mockitt is a complete web design tool that you can access on your desktop or the web (via any browser). The application is extremely easy to use and features a wide range of web design templates that you can further customize as per your requirements. The best part is that the basic version of Mockitt is available for free that you can access on the web without installing anything.
- Extensive templates and widgets: On Mockitt, you can find a wide range of website design templates and other widgets that you can readily use. You can customize the templates and can even create vectors from scratch with its designing options.
- Low learning curve: Since Mockitt is one of the most user-friendly applications out there, you don’t need any prior technical experience to work on it. Without writing any code, you can come up with the entire website design seamlessly.
- Fully clickable website mockups: You can also find tons of dynamic design elements in Mockitt to create clickable prototypes. For instance, you can link different pages, change the status of entities, and set up all kinds of trigger events.
- Ideal for Teamwork and Collaboration: Mockitt is integrated with the Olympic Games cloud technology, letting you collaborate with your team. You can assign different roles to your colleagues, manage your projects, and even maintain dedicated history versions.
- Preview and Direct Handoff: The web design tool will let you obtain a preview of your projects from different perspectives like smartphones or desktops. You can also directly export your projects into formats like CSS, PNG, APK, etc. for instant development.
Pricing: Free or $69 annually
2. Balsamiq
Balsamiq is a wireframing tool that you can use to create web designs with low to medium fidelity. You can either use the online web design tool of Balsamiq or try its desktop applications.
- Balsamiq provides a rapid wireframing tool that would let you create the overall structure of your website.
- There are numerous UI components that you can drag and drop to your projects and further customize.
- The overall interface of Balsamiq is pretty easy to use and there are tons of reusable vectors in the web design tool.
- It also supports the linking of different pages to create clickable prototypes and can export them in PDF or PNG formats.
Pricing: $9 or $49 per month
3. Sketch
If you are looking for a more advanced web design tool, then Sketch would be an ideal option. Available for macOS, it provides tons of designing and collaborative features to meet every web design need of yours.
- You can find an inbuilt design system that would automatically let you set layouts, color schemes, etc. for web design.
- There are also numerous professionally-made templates for website design in Sketch that you can readily use.
- You can also upload your projects on the Sketch cloud to collaborate with your team and manage your designs.
- There is an inbuilt vector editor and pixel-level precision tool to let you create custom web designs from scratch.
Pricing: $9 per editor monthly
4. Wix
Owned by Microsoft, Wix is one of the most beginner-friendly solutions to create websites. Using Wix, you can learn how to web design without writing codes or going through any technical hassle.
- Wix has hundreds of web design templates under different categories that you can choose to create your website.
- Once a template is loaded, you can change its overall layouts and color themes to customize it.
- Wix also provides an inbuilt website domain service and SEO plans to host and promote your website.
- There are also advanced features to include an ecommerce store, blog, and other add-on web services.
Pricing: Starts from $14 per month
5. Webflow
If you want, you can also try Webflow, which is a professional web design tool to create a dynamic website. Without the need for writing codes, you can come up with dynamic websites using Webflow.
- There are tons of layouts, widgets, interactions, animations, and dynamic elements to come up with a responsive website design.
- Webflow has also integrated Amazon Web Services, letting you host your websites using its inbuilt features (extra payment).
- If you want, you can directly export your web design projects into suitable formats like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- There are several inbuilt content management options, SEO tools, and ecommerce services in Webflow to create scalable websites.
- Using Webflow is pretty easy since it has a low learning curve, and it even offers a free trial version to get a hands-on experience of its services.
Pricing: Starts from $12 per month
I’m sure that after reading this post, you would be able to know how to web design like a pro. Most of the experts recommend using a dedicated web design tool like Wondershare Mockitt to work on website design. Ideally, a tool like Mockitt would make the web design process pretty easy with the range of extensive templates that it offers. Besides that, there are numerous other options to preview your designs and directly export them that would certainly save your time and resources.