Minimalism — the clear, grey-on-white aesthetic popularised by (amongst others) Apple — has been the dominant pattern for years. It creates a skilled look and provides easy-to-understand navigation. Alternatively, Maximalism — a visible feast that pulls consideration with complexity and uniqueness — has began to achieve traction.
On this submit, we’ll discover each side of the argument and supply straightforward methods designers can simplify web sites.
What’s Simplicity in Net Design?
Minimalism is usually characterised as simplicity. However that’s not all the time the case. Often Minimalist navigation is so minimal that it’s troublesome to make use of. The flip facet is that Maximalism, typically characterised as complicated, can use easy navigation.
Many Minimalist components are extra complicated than a few Maximalist components. The secret’s to cut back the variety of components, whatever the chosen fashion.

Simplicity in net design is normally about how easy the person expertise is, and that comes all the way down to navigation. Typically, designers make navigation unnecessarily complicated by trying to creatively invent the wheel. This forces customers to experiment to discover ways to use the design, rising frustration and the notion of complexity.
Scrolling just isn’t easy. A gesture utilized to a mouse, a trackpad, or a display (every gesture being totally different) that strikes the place of content material relative to the viewport just isn’t easy. However it’s second nature as a result of we all know the way to do it. Scrolling is realized, and so it’s easy. By limiting interplay to established design patterns, we are able to design web sites which are easy to use.

Along with constructing web sites which are easy to make use of. We have to make sure that they look like easy to the person. The Aesthetic Usability Impact is a fascinating idea in UX design that claims that how enticing one thing seems impacts how straightforward to make use of it’s perceived to be.
No matter your method, magnificence = simplicity.
Whether or not you go for Minimalism, Maximalism, or another ‑ism, simplicity in net design is a mixture of familiarity and wonder.

The Professionals of Easy Web sites
There are quite a few advantages to choosing a easy web site:
- Improved UX — A easy web site that’s simpler to navigate results in a higher expertise for the person, which suggests extra conversions.
- Improved model notion — manufacturers which are seen as producing extra lovely content material are usually perceived as having a increased high quality, which suggests increased worth.
- Quick load occasions — easy web sites are likely to have fewer components that have to be loaded, they usually use much less customized JavaScript, making them sooner to load than complicated websites with a number of components and interactive elements.
- Elevated website positioning efficiency — easy websites lean into frequent design patterns using easy supply code that’s simpler for search engines like google to crawl and usually tend to be ranked extremely.
- Simpler growth — with much less work concerned in constructing a easy web site, it’s typically sooner and cheaper to create and preserve.
The Cons of Easy Web sites
It isn’t all upside; there are a few downsides to making a easy web site:
- Easy is tough — simplicity is likely one of the hardest issues to design. It requires humility, expertise, and the flexibility to succeed in the core of a downside.
- Lack of visible influence — easy web sites with Minimalism as their chosen aesthetic can lack a “wow” issue and fail to face out in a crowded market.
- Some issues are simply complicated — complexity isn’t all the time a dangerous factor. Complexity introduces selection and suppleness. Simplicity can imply inflexible repetition.
- Tough to scale — easy web sites embody solely what is critical for his or her content material, however content material modifications over time. Easy web sites typically lack the flexibility to develop and should be reassessed and redesigned as new options and content material are launched.
Straightforward Ways For Simplifying Web sites
There are a variety of methods during which designers can simply simplify their web site designs:
- Use established design patterns — utilizing established design patterns, particularly for navigation, simplifies a web site as a result of customers know and perceive how the location works. Familiarity simplifies something.
- Cut back the variety of hyperlinks — navigation needs to be easy, with simply sufficient hyperlinks for customers to search out their method round with out being overwhelmed by selection.
- Make the most of detrimental house — detrimental house (also referred to as white house) helps delineate areas of a web site permitting customers to deal with one process at a time.
- Create modular designs — divide pages into smaller sections utilizing clear headings and detrimental house. Modular designs enable faster scanning of knowledge whereas sustaining an aesthetic.
- Cut back litter — get rid of any non-essential design components that may detract from the core components of the web site.
- Streamline processes — be sure that kinds are straightforward to fill out and make the most of shortcuts wherever potential to make navigating the web site simpler.
- Design a lovely web site — magnificence is perceived as easy, so make sure that your design is gorgeous, and it’ll even be perceived as easy.
Conclusion
Though there are some drawbacks to designing and constructing a easy web site, the professionals far outweigh the cons for companies. A easy web site creates a skilled look, will increase the notion of your services or products as prime quality, and promotes engagement and conversions.
Designers aiming to create a easy web site ought to begin by specializing in navigating content material in a predictable method utilizing established design patterns. Select any aesthetic you want, from Minimalism to Maximalism, however make sure that you utilize it properly and that customers will understand the expertise as easy.
Simon Sterne
Simon Sterne is a employees author at WebdesignerDepot. He’s curious about know-how, WordPress, and all issues UX. In his spare time he enjoys pictures.