The Design Atmosphere

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Atmosphere or environments easily make anyone uneasy and apprehensive. This is mainly due to many factors including but not limited to general disorganization, bad lighting or clashing colors in the surroundings. However, the biggest perpetrator is usually the mess and the clutter that disagree with your work flow.

Clutter is the usual enemy of your surroundings. More often than not it results to chaos and disarray that can disrupt your work which serves as a counter-productive thing hanging in your life. When disorder takes place, you will get uneasy, things that are out of place and irrelevant might rule over and could eventually affect your decisions and disposition in life. Given the fact that your work alone has its own “hazard” so to speak, adding up cluttered surroundings could lead to a more stressful life in a hectic situation.

The urge to get out of the place more quickly is one of the manifestations of a messed-up environment because our system is not that adaptable to a cramped untidy situation. The same principle goes out to the web pages out there. Have you ever wondered why people get out as fast as they arrive in a website where mess, confusion, chaos and disorder reigns? The answer is as simple as people are gasping their way out of an airtight situation avoiding suffocation.

Intentional or not, a person’s home environment is the manifestation of his personality-just as the website’s design and organizational content is the virtual manifestation of the brand’s reputation. Environment, whether natural or virtual, affects human behavior and perception.

Clutter comes in naturally. It is also a sign of natural progression wherein a home or an office or even a website accumulate things through time. Gathering up could only happen if you fail to purged things up of non-essentials or getting rid of the garbage. Other causes would be when everyone in each department wants their “things” up front and in the center. Dynamic designing whether at home or in a website would require you to decide which things should be placed in front and what should be on the other room. Choose what’s more crucial while providing an easy access to other area of the house.

In parallel to a corporate website design, HR information should be contained in the HR page because not all people who visit the site are always looking for a job. If we treat a website like a house, therefore, visitors should be treated well and make them feel at home. But how do we make visitors comfortable enough during their stay and come back for more? How do we, as designers create an environment that will attract and make visitors come back again? These are the main factors to consider for both an interior and web designer alike.

Visual elements in a website such as typography, colors, icons and other images should be well thought of by the web designer. So much so as the interior designer should consider the furnishings, surfaces, colors, arrangements and the aesthetic quality of the house. Keeping these things in proper order will make up a good and harmonious place naturally and virtually. Designers should consider carefully the visitors and users preferences. There should be no clash between the design and the visitors.

Colors – Colors have different uses for specific messages targeting specific users. Once a decision has been made on what specific color palette to use, a designer can use it to direct users to a specific content thus, creating a detailed environment. Using too many colors not in harmony to each other will only make the site too cluttered and a sore to look at.

Typography – Just like choosing a color palette, it is best to stick to a typographical theme that best suits the site. Cramming it with different kinds of typefaces will confuse the visitors as they will not be able to grasp the messages the type is sending out.

Imagery – have you seen web pages with a woman smiling welcoming visitors to the site or two hands shaking closing a deal? That’s clutter and nothing more. Cluttered images are representation that serves no purpose at all. It should enhance the overall environment by conveying a message or felling reflecting the site’s intention. If none of these are met, the imagery is not effective and definitely a waste of time and effort.

Content - Well defined pecking order of information is important in helping out the users to understand what’s in store for them in a site and to look for pertinent information that they need. If too many elements are presented at once in varying level of information, there is a high probability of misinterpretation and confusion, thus defeating the purpose of informing the users significantly. Overwhelming use of flashing colors in bold, large bright presentation will take out the focus on the most important factor of the site.

Navigation and user feedback – Just like a well designed house where the main door does not immediately leads to a bedroom, it holds true to a website. If the visitors on a website are experiencing a run-around along the pages trying to look for the important information he needs and consequently landing on the wrong pages, the website has a serious problem of navigation. A clutter free website should have clear map information that leads the viewers to a critical content via subtle feedback like a hovering info or highlight when the cursor passes through it.

Cluttered surroundings whether at home or through websites affect the well being of a viewer. It triggers stress and confusion. In the information highway, cluttered websites can mislead people to a wrong direction and making them avoid sites that cause such misunderstanding and disorder. Sticky websites on the other hand is more comfortable and organized with logical organization that helps visitors to understand as well as imparting knowledge in every turn. Good designs whether at home or in a webpage spawn peace and harmony.