Site Background or Game-Changer?
Filed under: Web Design
Imagine: you’ve entered a friend’s house for the first time. Though you’re in a new place, you don’t need a tour to know which room is the bathroom, which is the living room, and which is the kitchen. You understand the purpose of each room by the contextual objects within it and the logical flow created throughout the house. What’s in the room and how it’s presented serves as a map, a way of navigation. Big table and formal lighting means dining room. Toys, kids books and a mess means playroom. Tile, towels and toilet means bathroom. You get the picture.
In a way, a website is like a house. On a good site, you don’t need to read fine print to understand what it’s about or where to find what – the organization and aesthetics make that readily apparent. A website’s background layer appearance can lend a lot in this regard. Think of the background layer as the cabinets in your kitchen, the tile in your bathroom, the shiny hardwood floors in your dining room. Though it’s only one element out of a whole, it’s one that can immediately leave the impression, “This is what this place is all about.”
On a website, a background can organize content for easy navigation, as well as set a mood for the audience. Check out these websites for great examples of this concept:
Content organizers:
Mood setters:
See what I mean? The background of a website helps to visually lead the user down a logical path, whether that means setting a mood in keeping with the company culture or separating elements to help the audience find exactly what it is looking for. When the background offers a variety of colors to separate different areas of the website, it provides the user with a useful map, instead of leaving them hanging. Sure, they’ll read the copy on your website – but it’s nice to give the audience a visual starting point.
Posted on June 30th, 2009 by Hannah
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