designing for wordpress and web design: bridging the gap between design and development

Designing for WordPress and Web Design: Bridging the Gap between Design and Development

Presented by: Ngaire AckerleyGraphic and Web Designer/Front-end Developer

Photograph © Ngaire Ackerley

http://lbdesign.tv [email protected]

http://designack.com [email protected]

twitter @ngaireackerleyLinkedin Ngaire Ackerley

About me

Ngaire Ackerley (Confused? It’s a New Zealand name - pronounced ‘Nigh-ree’)

• Graphic and web designer, front-end developer for LBDesign

• First class Honours in Computer Graphic Design, New Zealand

• Working in the design and web industry for over 6 years in NZ and the UK

• Working with WordPress for 2 years now

LBDesign• Small Communications Design agency with offices in the UK and US

• Work with small to medium businesses and charities

• LBDesign co-organises the Philly ‘blurbs WordPress Meetup




What we’ll be covering today

Designing for users

Design Principles• Guide the eye / Hierarchy

• Unity / Consistency

• Balance

• Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)

Using WordPress and Web design to implement design principles




Designing for UsersHow do users think?

A Typical Website User:

• Appreciates quality and credibility

• Doesn’t read, they scan

• Is impatient and insist on instant gratification

• Doesn’t make optimal choices

• Will follow their intuition

• Wants to have control

Based on:http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/




Designing for UsersHow to help users

• Don’t make users think

• Manage to focus users’ attention

• Strive for feature exposure

• Strive for simplicity

• Don’t be afraid of the white space

• Communicate effectively with a “visible language”

Based on:http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/




Website Design Principles

Guide the eye / Hierarchy

• Consider goals of website - this should drive where on the page the

content is positioned

• Consider positioning - like a newspaper, where design elements are on

a webpage, impacts on what order they are seen in

• Important information should be easy to find. Whether this is contact

information, a feature, a call to action or a logo




Example of Design Principles used to create Hierarchy

Colour

Alignment

Size and contrast




Hierarchy in WordPress and Web design

Slideshows• Consider how text and images can be combined to be informative

Multiple featured images • Handy and simple way to include more than one image in a focus area

Page.ly MultiEdit Plugin• Allows you to separate out main body content into tabs in the admin

• Could be useful for customising unique parts to the site




Slideshow with text

Multiple featured images




Hierarchy in WordPress and Web design

Custom post types• Useful for slideshows or custom header content such as testimonials if

you don’t want to use plugins

Blogs or news items• Could consider highlighting a special or latest post with space, increased

font size, background colour, custom excerpt length





Unity / Consistency

• Making website elements relate and work well together

• Written content/message should also be consistent

Inconsistencies in a design are like spelling mistakes in an email.

They lower the quality and professionalism of a company




Unity / Consistency: In WordPress and Web design

Templates• Ask yourself ‘Why does this page need a new template?’

• Consistent sidebars

Branding • Front-end of site

• CMS and login pages

Example: happytables A company that produces websites for restaurants, consistent branding across all levels of sites.





Menus and Navigation• Consistency in thought process from top level > 2nd level > 3rd level

• Keep navigation easy to locate and keep the styling consistent

Dynamic Menus in WordPress

wp_list_pages





Image Sizes• Consider setting up specific featured image sizes

• Consider adjusting images sizes in the settings panel

• Suggest to your users ideal image sizes so they fit within the design

Related Logos of different formats• Shrink them down to be the same height, so they sit nicely in a row

• Consider making logos greyscale

Too much copy• Consider using headings, bullet points and simple styling such as bold





Moderation: Consider everything in moderation

Colours• Consider tones and density

• One or two bold colours with

one or two sub colours work

well to guide the eye through

the hierarchy

• Let images bring more colour

into the site as needed

http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Fonts and styles• Pick 1-2 fonts and limit the weight/styles that you use

Consider the little things• Breadcrumbs

• Pagination, arrows and ‘Read more »’ links

• Link states

• Style core tags like <h1>, <a> and in a way that they

default to the correct style across the site





http://www.virgin.com





Symmetrical Balance

For more information http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/

Horizontal symmetry





Asymmetrical Balance

For more examples http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/10/asymmetrical-balance-in-web-design/

Asymmetry





Colour Balance• Large areas hold more weight than smaller areas

• Darker areas and saturated colours are heavier than lighter areas

and unsaturated colours

• Borders and stroke add weight

• Texture creates more weight the more dense it is

Balance: In WordPress and Web design

Grids• Great starting point

• Can overlap columns/rows

Including various content into web pagesget_template_part;

get_pages(include = 39’);

include(‘breadcrumbs.php);

Widgets

<?php wpe_excerpt(‘wpe_excerptlength_teaser’, ‘wpe_excerptmore’); ?>//custom excerpt lengthsfunction wpe_excerptlength_teaser( $length ) {return 23; }function wpe_excerptmore($more) {return ‘ ... <a href=”’. get_permalink() . ‘”>’ . __( ‘Read more »’, ‘twentyten’ ) . ‘</a>’;}function wpe_excerpt($length_callback=’’, $more_callback=’’) {global $post; if(function_exists($length_callback)){ add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, $length_callback); } if(function_exists($more_callback)){ add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, $more_callback); }$output = get_the_excerpt();$output = apply_filters(‘wptexturize’, $output);$output = apply_filters(‘convert_chars’, $output);$output = ‘’.$output.’’;echo $output; }

Example: Balance with custom excerpt lengths





Consider how copy is pulled into the page• Does copy keep its paragraphs and spacing?

wpautop($var->post_content);

Posts• Posts per page

• Pagination

• Avoid duplication if highlighting a post

Length of sidebar vs length of body copy • Don’t have to match, but it can look silly if they are drastically out of

portion when it comes to content




w3c box modelRemember margin is outside of the element width, but padding and borders add to the element width


Space• Line height

• White space - empty/negative space

• Box model of margins and padding

• Consider scrolling and how much important content is above or

below the fold





KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid

‘Minimalist design has been described as design at its most basic, stripped of superfluous elements, colors, shapes and textures.

Its purpose is to make the content stand out and be the focal point. From a visual standpoint, minimalist design is meant to be calming and to bring the mind down to the basics.’

- Smashing Magazine






Minimize content

White Space

Simple Design - create limitations for yourself• Limit colours

• Limit fonts

• Limit number of different sizes of fonts, margins, padding, line heights etc

• Limit extra styles ie. underline, borders, bold




Keep it Simple: In WordPress and Web design

Themes• Twentyten and Twentyeleven are good starting themes if you don’t like

developing from scratch every time - but still need work




Keep it Simple: In WordPress and Web design

WordPress Functionality• Thumbnails, image sizes, featured images

• Excerpts

• Widgets




Resources and Good Reads

‘Minimalist Design: When Less is More’http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/minimalist-web-design-when-less-is-more/

‘How Limitations Improve Design’http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/08/how-limitations-improve-design/

‘The Invisible Side of Design’ by Vitaly Friedmanhttps://speakerdeck.com/u/smashingmag/p/the-invisible-side-of-design

‘Understanding Visual Hierarchy in Web Design’http://web design.tutsplus.com/articles/design-theory/understanding-visual-hierarchy-in-web-design/

Colour Scheme Toolshttp://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

http://kuler.adobe.com/

Thank you!

Any Questions?

LBDesignhttp://lbdesign.tv [email protected]

designackhttp://designack.com [email protected]

Twitter@ngaireackerleyLinkedinNgaire Ackerley

Where can I be found?

Photograph © Ngaire Ackerley