What can magazines teach you about Web design?
When you look at a magazine there are certain aspects that you expect to be there - easy to read text, a table of contents, pictures, interesting stories, etc. Web design is quickly becoming similar in the fact that people expect a page to have certain elements. The three main areas I see that overlap in Web and Magazine design are content, navigation, and design.
Content in magazines and Web sites is the biggest similarity between the two. Catchy headlines on the cover draw you in to read more. Lists and “How-to’s” are commonly used formats to grab attention. Giving away “secrets” and being the first to publish a news story are also common tactics of magazines. Now go look at the front page of Digg or Reddit. You’ll see these same formats are popular through out the Web, too. Good content is good whether it’s published in a magazine or on a blog.
Navigation is another important feature of both magazines and Web. When you open a magazine you expect a table of contents to be the first thing you see. It’s usually clearly laid out and may have call-outs for major topics of interest. On a Web site, people expect the navigation to be near the top of the page and easy to find. Mystery Meat navigation is an easy way to turn away readers. If I picked up a magazine to find an article and the table of contents was in the middle of the magazine, or I needed a decoder ring to find what I was looking for, I would go to another source to find the information. The same goes for Web, don’t make people think too hard when navigating your site.
Finally, the design of magazines can teach you a lot about Web design. Fonts should be clear and easy to read. Pictures of people are often a good way to help your readers relate with you or your topic. And the most important design element from any good magazine is consistency through out. Moving the navigation around from page to page of a Web site or changing colors drastically confuses Web site visitors and may cause them to leave the site.
Turning to a proven medium, like magazines, is a good way to see which direction newer technologies, like the Web, are headed. Following the tactics learned from magazines is a good way to keep people interested and coming back to your site.
