Posts about “Web Design”
The cultural differences in the perception of colour are well known to anthropologists. Red, for example is bold and signifies anger in the West, but is considered lucky in the East, especially in China. But do web designers take the cultural colour faux pas into consideration? They should. Especially if designing for international clients. After all, colour is a tricky beast and just because you happen to be in love with mauve, it doesn’t mean your client will.
Jakob Nielson is a web usability consultant who believes that page loading times should determine how a website is designed. To improve the user experience, for example, he advocates against using large graphics or fancy flash animations (among other things) because most users don’t have broadband. His work is important because it focuses on the most efficient way for users to navigate the web and websites. Partly as a result of his teachings, website designers have moved away from bloated graphic-heavy websites to cleaner, more intuitive interfaces.