We all know a good web design when we see it but what separates a 'good' design from an average one?

After designing websites for over 20 years, I have seen the industry come full circle. Back in the day, complex web designs with enormous amounts of content were simply not possible. As a result web designs were naturally cleaner.

Now that the possibilities are endless, designers and clients have a tendency to overload their website with every bit of content they can think of. This has created busy, messy, and visually confusing websites.

With the onset of mobile phone browsing, web designers are again being forced to be far more concise with their content and strip web designs down to their core elements.

I believe this will have a very positive effect on web design.

Everyone would agree that Apple’s website is one of the best. This is the world’s biggest company yet its home page features only one product at a time. Each page has a visual hierarchy, which controls how the user views the content. Copy is very concise and imagery is big and beautiful. This site will work effectively across the multitude of devices it will be viewed on.

In summary:

• be concise
• be bold with type and images
• decide what is the core message you want to convey
• don’t try and say it all on the home page.