A picture is worth a thousand words. The power of a good visual is one of the primary reasons for the website design industry to exist. In fact, our existence as a species is fundamentally defined by our sense of sight. What we see and how we interpret things that we see is an important factor in determining our action and passage of our lives. In order for your website to be remembered it should stand out and be unique. Photography website is a showcase of a business to the World Wide Web.
Optical media especially photography is the closest that we can come to experience life without going there ourselves. Photography can either make or break a web design. When you are adding photography to a web design, you are not only adding good pixels but offering the users the involvement to go along with whatever you are selling. It is easy to embed an image in a website. In fact, images are a significant part of any web site that you create.
According to Jakob Nielsen, an expert in web page usability says- “users pay close attention to photographs and images that contain relevant information. They usually ignore fluffy pictures used to ‘jazz up’ web pages”.
Does your contain-driven web site need images? Well, in that cases use professional photography on your website to help you distinguish yourself from the competitor and emphasize on your site that drive users to vital information in an efficient manner.
While you start dealing with the images in your web design, here are a few usability guides:
What to look for in a good image?
Quality, composure, size and exposure are the fundamentals. People don’t only look for quality in pictures but also pay attention to the technique of contrasts that make a huge difference
How effective the image should be?
If the photographs fail to create interests and excitement, it will never work. The images should contain three popular characteristics of-
- Brand appeal
- Emotional appeal
- Rational appeal.
The images for the website should fit the brand and benefit the product it is designed for
Do user response matters?
Not only the images should help in decision-making and incite a desire for the product but also they should convey the right message to the website reader.
Now that you know the basics, you will never find “that something is missing” in your website design anymore. However, this is not the end of it. To make that picture perfect site, here are a few fundamental techniques to follow-
– The images should serve a definite purpose:
Use photos not just for the sake of it. They must have something to do with what you sell. For instance, if the website is all about fragrance, the images should be of the actual business- different fragrance collection. On the other hand, if the site is all about selling a tangible thing such as insurance, it is difficult to embed the exact picture. Instead, you can use symbols linked to the products and services.
As the symbols are different in different countries, make sure that they are strong and are easily recognised by the website users. As people have no time to read long content related to a product, the image should serve the purpose to get an idea with a wink of an eye.
– Quality supersedes quantity:
Keeping the digital file as high quality is important. The camera quality setting should be maximum to get the right
- Poses and postures
- Lighting
- Framing
- Exposure
Also you can edit a photograph by suing Adobe Photoshop or with a great editing program such as GIMP. However, be careful as not to over-sharpen the images as they might get a look a bit over-processed. Most importantly, get control over the final image. The consistency in poses, postures, expressions, frame and other technical aspects of the photograph such as lighting and quality should be maintained.
– Contrast in photography:
Contrast is a tool used by photographer to direct viewer’s attention towards a subject. TONAL CONTRAST AND COLOR CONTRAST is the two essential types of contrasts. It is important to learn as how to combine and use these types of contrasts to your advantage. Contrasts improve the vibrancy of an image and produce amazing results. The basic technique is to put dark texts against a light colored photo and the vice versa. A great contrast is a great way to present the images in your site and seek the attention of the users.
– Gravitate the images with context:
Context in a photo goes beyond the subject and tells something more about it. Context help a photo tell a story about what it is all about. Visual context is portrayed with the photos especially in case of an audio file, text-heavy page and article. However, be careful while you select photos to provide context as these photos will likely set the mood of the readers. The images should fir the mood of the article.
– The correct dimension:
The width and height of an image in HTML markup is of prime importance. A web page always load the text first and then the images. Because of this characteristic, until the images are completely loaded, their position is marked with a blue question mark thumbnail. There are a few factors you need to consider when it comes to the size of the website photograph-
- Keep space for header and text
- Check how much of a monitor the browser takes up
- The larger the image, the larger is the file size.
So what is the best image size? 400-500 pixels high are safe for the majority of the screen. However, higher pixels than this may be challenging for older browsers but look better on newer browsers. Also it is important to consider other elements you want to have on your webpage with images – the navigation, caption and page header. Keeping the height of all images same can be a great idea so that the layout does not jump from image to image. However, the alternative is to use a max-height and centre your images within a fixed area.
Like the old saying goes-“the first impression is the last one” it should be well implemented in your website photographs.
