Visual Design: In-Depth Guide To Its Principles and Best Practices

OVERVIEW

Visual design enhances the look and usability of a design or product using suitable images, typography, space, layout, and color. It goes beyond just appearance. Designers place elements thoughtfully to create interfaces that improve user experience and encourage conversions.

Swiss Gear, a popular eCommerce website, was concerned about its revenue shortfalls and how it could improve it. This resulted in hiring “The Good,” which did a comprehensive conversion audit and analyzed users' behavior and the pattern they followed on the website. They opened up the weak points and twisted the design according to those patterns, bumping revenue to 132% YoY.

The Internet is filled with such stories where web design proved vital in user engagement, their decision-making on the website, and ultimately increasing those numbers in the organization’s annual report. However, modern web design is not a straightforward stepwise procedure. Too many elements are involved in making a website's visual appearance as effective as to make a sizeable impact. If one could understand each element that constitutes the visual design, the process becomes easier and fun, something this post aims to dissect and explore through its journey.

In this visual design tutorial, we will learn the basics of visual design, including its principles, elements, examples, and the key differences from UI design. By the end of this tutorial, you will have practical insights into creating effective visual content for various purposes.

Why Do We Need to Invest in Visual Design?

The impact a visual design change can create is evident through the above example. It does look aesthetically attractive to the user. However, there are other reasons as well that motivate an organization to invest their time and money in perfecting the visual design.

First Impression Makes a Difference

The expression “first impression makes a difference,” used for people’s appearance, also applies to web applications. Research reveals that the end-user makes an opinion about the web application in just about 50ms! Google’s research has also confirmed this fact.

But that is not the most critical concern for a designer. If we just take the visual design of the web application, this research dictates that the aesthetic appeal of the web app is analyzed in just 17ms, almost one-third of the previous number.

These numbers tell us why visual designers need to make everything perfect, as they have little time to impress, and no one knows what a user would observe at first glance.

Revenue Boost

The above test of impressing the user in just 17ms is a tough job. However, if the designer passes this test, it certainly means that the user will spend some time on the application. This corresponds to the higher chances of purchasing something (like an eCommerce app) or signing up for a profile. The bottom line is that better visual design means better revenues for the organization.

The increment in revenue depends largely on the organization and the previous state of visual designs. It could be as high as 132% for Swiss Gear or a nominal increase of 39% for Läderach. Either way, it is a win for the organization behind the web application.

Brand Image and Reputation Boost

Web pages with good visual designs are aesthetically pleasing and attract users. They certainly will remember it and may mention it to their peers when they talk about the application or the domain in which the app is released in general. However, another truth is that vice-versa is also true in this case.

A poorly designed web page is also remembered and talked about with the same intensity, if not more. Such word of mouth spoils the brand's image and damages its reputation. People receiving such unfavorable talks may not even open the application when they need to transact something. Such scenarios harm the business and its revenues, and therefore, it is recommended that organizations invest in visual designs to boost their brand image and reputation.

Present More Content

Visual designs are not just about the text (as seen in the previous examples) but also about images, each element’s arrangement, and the overall presentation. Investing in the visual designs reveals an interesting arrangement of elements that can deliver much more information in much less space with appealing pages. For instance, consider this landing web page from Freshbooks:

This is an example of how visual designs can accommodate content in the first frame itself (without scrolling). On this web page, the end-users get the following information:

• The tool's purpose and functionality.
• Special deals are available for new users.
• The tool comes at no cost.
• Direct phone number for sales inquiries.
• Information on the types of businesses the tool serves.
• The image emphasizes that the tool helps save money.

This is in addition to the various redirection points available on the same frame, such as Pricing, Resources, Features, etc.

Large User Base

A better visual design will keep the user on the website exploring various offerings from the organization. The more a user spends time on the app, the more chances of signing up and being a part of the community. This does have a ripple effect as the user can now be reached for marketing and new offers through email, and it will make the user return to the application in the future.

Usability, Pleasure, and Value Enhancement

Great visual designs have been attributed to many factors, of which three are the most valuable. This starts from improving usability (or the user experience), i.e., the user amplifies their website experience through various elements. This experience transforms into the pleasure they get while browsing and observing different areas on the web page. Pleasure is the main element we are looking for while planning the visual designs of an application because it is the direct reason for three things:

• How much does the user value the website (hence the business)?
• How much does the user intend to reuse the website?
• How much does the user intend to recommend the website?

This analysis published in one of the research papers also documents the flow from visual design to outcomes a business receives. It verifies why visual design is so important and why it is just not about what we see on the web page.

The valuable benefits of visual designs described above are not only one-time but are repeated throughout the future. However, as a visual designer, one thing is important to note: The visual design should remain consistent with the current trends. With time, visual designs tend to modify, and keeping an eye on them is a part of their responsibilities.

Conducting usability testing is crucial to ensure consistency and verify every web element's functionality. Additionally, performing visual regression testing allows you to check UI elements consistently across different browsers and devices. This type of testing helps identify any inconsistencies that may arise when new elements are added, ensuring that the appearance and functionality of existing elements remain intact.

Check out the video tutorial to delve deeper into the practical aspects of performing visual regression testing. This resource provides hands-on insights, allowing you to gain practical knowledge and enhance your understanding of the topic.

Elements of Visual Design

To this point, visual design has been referred to as the aesthetics of a web page or how it visually appears and feels to the end user. However, there haven't been specific details on these elements. Upon counting the elements on a web page, one realizes that different web pages contain different elements. Therefore, a theoretical generalization organizes the elements of visual design, leading to the following sub-elements:

• Color
• Point
• Line
• Shape
• Texture
• Space
• Form
• Typography

Each visual design element explores different aspects and their impact on the user and consequently, the organization varies. Let’s explore each of these elements in detail.

Color

The first element of a visual design is the color of the elements. As a user, all other optimizations may fail if the color is not chosen correctly, as our eyes are too sensitive to color, and these are the first things that anyone observes.

When it comes to the color of an element, it is important to remember that while each element may look good individually, the whole set, when brought together, may not speak the same story. The color element is based on a few more sub-components to boil this down.

HSL

Color is often chosen with respect to Hue, Saturation, and Lightness parameters. These three parameters lie on the three axes:

The hue, saturation, and lightness depict the chosen color, the depth of its intensity, and how much light is mixed in it, respectively. The color can be chosen through a color wheel:

The choice of color depends on many things, such as the product and the organization. For instance, if the organization’s logo is red, the designers try to keep the color choice to red to make it consistent with the logo and keep different saturation and lightness to achieve various shades of red.

Contrast

The contrast of a color deals with the luminosity of that color with respect to its background and surroundings. Human eyes are susceptible to luminosity, which makes this property of a color important to consider before locking it down. The designers should ensure that the contrast is not stinging for the eyes and is not too dull to blend into the environment. The colors should bloom according to the elements and dissociate with other parts of the same element with different colors and backgrounds.

Harmony

Color harmony is a concept of perceiving colors in all elements at once and determining how pleasing they are to the viewer. While it all depends on the end product, designers can still use certain color patterns that have proven to be harmonious with each other. These strategies are as follows:

• Complementary
• Split-complementary
• Analogous
• Triadic
• Tetradic
• Square
• Monochromatic

As seen in the above image, all the above strategies require a color wheel that may or may not be alike. The designers may find that a few color wheels have already been published to make color harmony easier. For instance, the Munsell color wheel is based on the Hue property.

Therefore, the designer is advised to ensure they are clear about the properties if they choose a specific color wheel. Otherwise, a generic color wheel works great too!

Scheme

A color scheme is the process of choosing a color to be applied to the element. The choice of color depends on the other colors used inside the element. The correct choice of color scheme leads to correct color harmony for sure. However, it does not mean something a bit different than the standard color scheme definitions cannot produce harmony among them. Color theory is always full of surprises and is constantly evolving.

As with color harmony, color schemes may also be used through various predefined strategies, which are as follows.

• Monochromatic
• Complementary
• Split-complementary
• Triad
• Tetrad
• Square
• Analogous

Choosing a color scheme with the abovementioned strategies provides a complete probability of color harmony and satisfaction.

Psychology

Color psychology has been an active part of visual design ever since marketing took the lead in growing a business through digital mediums. Although color psychology has been used for a long time, it has been confined to an organization's logos. A good example is food-related brands like McDonald's that keep their logo colors yellow, red, or a combination of both.

The era today is different than fifty years ago. Today, a web page has to play with psychology through all its elements, not just the logo color. This is based on the fact that different colors (or their combinations) activate different senses in a user, and if those align with the message of the organization or the product, the chances of the user staying on the website increase. There are a lot of colors that have a proven record in this area. Therefore, a visual designer must understand the business to use this phenomenon fully.

This visual design element is extremely important as it fills life to the web page. With this section, it is understandable that color is not just about selecting something random that looks pleasing to the eyes of a designer. It takes too many considerations with multiple factors that are harmonious and serene, balance various parameters, and align with what the organization has to offer.

Point

A point marks the beginning of something. Visualized as a dot on a web page, a point serves as the starting point for a line or a shape. It is devoid of direction and transforms into a line when given a direction. As lines and other shapes cannot exist without a point, we consider a point as the foundational element in visual design.

Line

A line is a connection between two points in space. It is a widely used element in design and can produce shapes, patterns, textures, and much more, depending on their use. They can be horizontal, vertical, broken, zigzag, and any other possible way as long as two points are connected. The possibilities are immense, depending on the designer’s thoughts.

So, how are lines used in designing other than forming shapes and elements? Lines on a web page can be used in isolation to highlight something or to create interesting and logical patterns on the web page. For instance, the following image shows how designers can take advantage of lines on a web page:

Lines create special meaning on a web page; the user perceives them differently when implemented perfectly. For instance, this logo uses lines to connect the organization name with the establishment imprint.

They can complete a certain design and add meaning to it differently.

Shape

Shapes are a core design element on a web page. They are self-contained, i.e., their boundary is visible through elements such as lines or separated through colors, patterns, or texture. Shapes have a special impact on web design, creating isolated elements (elements separated from others and the background) that exhibit their meaning and relevance. There are no strict rules on how a shape should be constructed, and designers are free to create their shapes as long as they are two-dimensional and have boundaries.

Still, as humans have evolved over so many years, they tend to be inclined towards certain shapes that exist in nature. For instance, symmetrical shapes will catch an eye in a shorter time as most organisms and natural objects are symmetrical. Such shapes can be studied by a designer, but they are not mandatory to be used in any way. These include:

• Geometric shapes (or mechanical shapes) that can be drawn through geometry and its principles.
• Organic shapes that are found in nature.
• Curvilinear shapes that have curved lines and smooth edges.
• Rectilinear shapes that have right angles and sharper edges.

With that mentioned, it is important to consider how different shapes affect the psychology of people and can impact their decisions on the application. For instance, circles are often considered a symbol of unity and exhibit a sense of community. It is often seen in abundance regarding healthcare or other wellness domains. A more modern example may look like this.

Similarly, the shapes used by the designer should resonate with the business goals to connect better with the end-user. They can be a mix of many or create new ones as per the requirement.

Texture

The texture of an element is the surface's look that will give the user a sensory feeling. For instance, the following texture applied on a two-dimensional image of a tree gives the feeling that we get through touch just through the visuals.

An image's texture can connect the user more to the web page, hence the business goals. It can attract their attention, which is the main aim of investing in visual designs. Texture applications are of two types:

• Tactile texture: The texture that can be felt through touch. It is generally used in painting methods.
• Visual texture: The texture that can be felt through the sense of sight. These textures can be felt by the user just by looking at it. For instance, the above image of the tree bark can give touch sensations.
• Pattern: Repeating a certain texture part multiple times creates a pattern over the background (or the element on which it is used).

A mix of them can give life to the shape or other elements used on the web page.

Space

Space is termed as the area that surrounds the element. It is often used to give depth to the element and glorify its properties and meaning to the user. For instance, the simplest example could be applying CSS shadow on an element to give it a three-dimensional property, although the object is two-dimensional.

Similarly, the designers can make use of the space to perceive one element being in the far distance while another is closer, shade the element to give a three-dimensional look, or create multiple other objects to define the position of an element:

In visual design, spaces are divided into two parts:

• Negative space
• Positive space

What we discussed here regarding space surrounding the elements is called negative space. It takes advantage of white space to provide additional properties to the element. However, positive space, which is the space inside the element, can also be twisted well by the designer to create beautiful and attractive designs. A good example is the following image that makes positive space look like negative space:

Form

The three-dimensional equivalent of a two-dimensional shape is called Form. It is created by applying other properties such as shadows, highlights, color, texture, etc., and is measured through width, height, and depth, the three elements of a 3D design.

As you can observe from this image, forms are enhanced versions of a shape and denote the same meaning as their two-dimensional counterpart. It is an effective strategy to get a user's attention and a core visual design element.

Forms are of two types:

• Natural form (also called Organic form).
• Geometric form.

Natural forms are those forms that occur in nature, i.e., they do not have clear, sharp boundaries and symmetry in their design. They are free-flowing, and their shapes cannot be defined or dissected.

The more organized and human form is the geometric form. It exhibits geometric properties, has sharper edges, and appears a lot cleaner than organic forms:

These forms do not give a natural feel to the user and have their relevance on a web page. Regardless, what designer uses on their web page depends on the element they are working on and how much it synchronizes with the business goals.

Typography (Optional)

The art of typography has been a popular element even before the digital age, as it was handwritten and manual. Today, it has become a lot more complex due to a large number of fonts and design strategies. While we naturally see more and more visual elements like images and videos on the page, textual elements have shortened to only a few extremely necessary words, which is why it is marked as optional. Still, we cannot casually use the text anywhere or of any type.

Typography is how textual elements are placed on a website. While other elements like shapes are always considered one whole unit, in typography, words and letters constituting the same words hold the same importance and priority. These elements should resonate with other design elements, align with the current tone of the page, and, at the same time, be pleasing to the eyes of the user.

As far as the user is concerned, typography is a compelling way to catch someone's attention within microseconds of landing on the page. All the designer needs to do is make these elements big and noticeable for the user:

Creating a compelling visual design involves ensuring consistency in typography elements. Limiting fonts to one or two on a page is advisable to avoid confusing the user. The selected fonts should complement each other for a cohesive appearance. Similar principles apply to the placement of these elements, emphasizing well-spaced letters and effective utilization of negative space. Striking a balance is key, with minimalistic designs focusing on a few words rather than overcrowding the available space.

Visual designers meticulously iterate through these elements on a web page to achieve a harmonious and balanced blend that is aesthetically pleasing and serves the internal purpose of enhancing business objectives. Beyond mastering the individual elements, designers must adhere to fundamental principles to assess the overall efficiency of their design before presenting it to users.

Hope you have gained a more detailed understanding of visual design elements. Now, let's delve into the principles of visual design.

Principles of Visual Design

Visual design principles help us determine how all the elements together would look as a single picture. These principles guide the designer to understand what should be done to make the most out of the web page's design. The visual design consists of the following principles.

• Scale or Proportion
• Hierarchy
• Balance
• Unity
• Movement
• Contrast
• Gestalt Principles

Let's see each individually to understand their importance on the web page.

Scale or Proportion

The scale of an element refers to its proportion compared to its surrounding elements. A few elements on the web page are kept at a larger proportion than others to attract the user's attention. These scaled-up elements exhibit higher priority, and designers do not want the user to miss them. Based on the same principle, different elements hold up different scaling factors on the web page.

In the above web page example, observe the areas that catch your eyes first, then the next element, and so on. The scale of the components used highly influences this navigation.

Hierarchy

The hierarchy principle in visual design defines a clear path for the user to see elements in the order of importance on the web page. Users should see the most important aspect and then move sequentially to others. This cannot be left to an end-user, and it becomes a visual designer's job to understand that if a user is confused about where to look or different users catch different elements on the web page, the hierarchical factors are absent, and the visual design is inappropriate.

Consider this page as an example:

On this page, even though there is a line beside “You”, a user might not have noticed it. Hence, the designer's intent of navigation through the hierarchy is established.

Hierarchy helps businesses connect with the user more profoundly. The above image uses size as a parameter to establish a hierarchy. However, there are other parameters as well that will produce the same results. These include color, contrast, style, shape, positioning, etc.

Balance

The principle of balance in visual design states that the elements should be placed keeping the balance on either side of the axis (imaginary) that crosses through the web page. The designers can consider a horizontal axis or a vertical one depending on their elements and properties.

In the above image, the vertical axis distributes balance among the elements. A thumb rule to ensure the elements are balanced is to use symmetry in designs and their placement. However, vice-versa is not true. If the elements are not symmetrical, it does not mean they are not balanced. It is just that asymmetrical balancing would demand experience from the visual designers.

Balance helps distribute the visual load from a user's point of view. If the balance is incorrect, the user's attention will automatically go toward the heavier side even after implementing other principles.

Unity

Unity in visual design, in simple words, refers to how harmonious everything looks as one single picture. However, it is much more complex to achieve than its definition. Unity in design is achieved by combining other principles while considering that each element needs variety to hold its importance in this mix. For instance, the elements can be colored with the same color but different shades to achieve unity.

A similar touch can be experienced through symmetry and fixing the size of elements as well. The above image is a good example of how unity can be achieved. The page uses similar typography and has the same shades of color, with one being darker to capture the primary attention of the user. The elements are also symmetrically aligned and maintain their significance by being unique. This is called “variety” in visual design, but it is hard to list it as a concrete principle as things work out pretty well without variety. The web page showcased above is an example of good visual design.

Movement

This refers to the path a user's attention takes as he lands on the website. This property is highlighted several times in different elements and principles written in this post. The basic rule to use in movement is that the user should consider the most implemented on the web page first, then the second most important, and so on. This can be achieved by providing contrasts, colors that take attention sequentially, and even by making the elements scale up in order of importance. This way, the visual designers ensure that even if the user does not go through all the elements, he has at least noticed the most prioritized ones.

Contrast

The definition of contrast is discussed in the “color” element of visual design. The impact of using a contrast is what makes it a core principle. When a designer uses contrasting colors, the one with a higher value attracts attention before other elements. For instance, consider this image:

Here, the words “Delete” and “Groceries” attract the user first while the list of items is seen at the last. The principle of contrast helps us declare a few important elements that the organization does not want the user to miss. They are best used in typography and scenarios with too many textual elements. However, too much contrast can distract users and create readability or design issues. Therefore, a balance in both the colors is required to be maintained.

Gestalt Principles

A final principle that every visual designer should be aware of is a collection called Gestalt Principles. The principles are based on optical (or visual) illusions and the theory of perception developed by German psychologists. For instance, the mind may perceive a series of stationary dots as moving when focused. The mind fills the gap in the things it processes even if they are not present, due to which such illusion occurs, and they work tremendously well on a web page. For instance, this image has no boundaries but will still be perceived as a panda by the viewers.

Such illusions are, however, only possible when these small individual elements are placed in the correct positions, as in the above image. Gestalt principles have defined various strategies to accomplish such illusions. They include:

• Closure (the above image uses this property)
• Similarity
• Proximity
• Figure/Ground
• Common region
• Continuity
• Focal Point

All of them require detailed discussion and are out of the scope of this post as they take us into the world of psychology. However, it is recommended to have them on tips while designing a web page.

These seven principles allow us to ensure that if the final design is based on them, it will be well received with the same intentions as it was developed. Since all the principles focus on getting attention on the page, they validate their relevance even before production and remain an integral part of designing web pages. In the following section, we will learn the 5C's in visual design that must be considered after knowing the principles.

The 5C's of Visual Design

The principles of visual design define many criteria, all of which are rarely picked up together. Practically, the designer has to find the perfect combination that resonates with the business goals and the tone of the web application. It falls into the planning stage and takes a lot of time. If only there were something to help the designer that is generic and should be considered each time, then the work here could be facilitated and wrapped up much quicker. Thankfully, researchers have explored this area and concluded these elements are the 5Cs of visual design.

Color

The only thing that has made its mark in each important criterion is the color scheme. This is because nothing attracts the human eye more than color. They are the elements that can make or break the overall web page experience, and naturally, designers and other team members decide on a shade only after long consideration. It connects with the user visually as well as emotionally. To accomplish a great color design, the sub-elements should be perfected individually. These include contrast, harmony, scheme, etc., discussed in detail in the previous section.

Clean

A clean design (or a minimalistic design) gives a lot of space to each element and helps make each of them the centerpiece of the whole canvas. Conversely, the more clutter a designer creates, the more confused users are about which element to focus on.

Consider the above visual design from the JCPenney website landing page. Since the elements are not cleanly placed and no room is given to the elements, there is a high chance that the user gets confused, especially among the four red boxes describing offers. A clean design always contributes to the user experience. While the above example has used extreme typography, this principle stands true for every element on the page.

Content

Each website needs a few words on its landing page to convey something in explicit, clear words to the end user. These words complement the images, videos, and other graphical elements and are called “content” in designer terms. The main aim of the content is to provide necessary information but not steal any attention from other elements because they, too, have their value on the page. A visual designer's responsibility is to balance these elements where no element dominates correctly, and each contains uniqueness.

Connection

As the name suggests, the elements a designer uses on the page should have meaning. For instance, if the color is blue, there should be a reason behind choosing this specific color, as there are a lot of soothing colors that provide positivity, etc. This connection is built with other elements, business goals, or the domain in which the application is launched. Such connections give a unified feeling to the customer and create a positive experience for the time the user spends on the website.

Consistency

Finally, the last C works for the consistency of the elements. A consistent design means the elements of one category resemble each other throughout the web page and hopefully throughout the application. For instance, if a certain font is used in typography, the same font should be used to create a consistent design. A user can unknowingly catch a difference in font, ultimately hindering the experience. The same principles are applied to other elements such as shapes, design elements, colors, texture, etc.

When creating visual design elements, following the design principles and the 5C's is crucial to guarantee that your web page looks appealing and receives positive user feedback. Consider incorporating smart UI visual testing to maintain trust and enhance user engagement on your web page.

This helps you to test and validate your design across different devices and browsers. This means you can be confident that your visually appealing design remains consistent and user-friendly for everyone. This smart UI visual testing aligns with your goal of creating a web page that meets design standards and performs well across various platforms.

Examples of Visual Design

A real-life example of visual design is a good basis to clarify how published websites leverage the elements and principles that finally create the desired effect. For this demonstration, let's take an example of an automation testing webinar page since it resonates with our profession and interest.

The designers of this page need not worry about making users stay since it already has a target audience that knows why they are on this website and what they want out of it. That is what makes web design interesting as even in such simple scenarios, we can pick up core points out of it:

• Shape: The page has a single shape that is curvilinear and symmetrical. It is one of the first elements a user sees on the page due to its characteristics and size.
• Color: The designers have used three primary colors: white, yellow, and black. The choice of white and yellow in the foreground reflects its high contrast with the background, which helps it come alive on the page without any special effects. A few elements are kept yellow to highlight and convey their importance to the end user. For instance, by seeing 2024, the user can get the conference year. Similarly, the Home, News, and Registration buttons are also kept yellow.
• Hierarchy: A clear hierarchy is visible on the page with the conference name along with the year taking the highest priority, with the second most being the days left (which is the second most important thing for the conference). Next in the hierarchy is the registration link, with other information in yellow next to the line. The hierarchy on the web page is exactly in the order of importance, which is what the designers require.
• Balance: Drawing a vertical axis on the middle of the page clearly shows that the page elements are in balance on either side.
• Typography: Only two fonts are used on the page, and since one is for naming the conference, the other complements it by providing other important information.
• Clean: The page has ample space to breathe for each element, the most important being the name of the conference. Analyzing it as a whole picture, the page observes inheriting the “clean” principle.
• Movement: A user's movement should be in order of the hierarchy. First, the user sees the conference name, then the remaining days, and finally, the registration button.

As mentioned, this website has set audience members to reach it with a purpose. Still, it is clear how visual designers have tried their best to get many registrations by providing minimum information. These elements will be more explicitly observable on applications that must try harder to retain customers or even get them a sign-up. These come under the services domain, and visual designers must work harder on such platforms.

With all the details we have studied about visual design. The following section lets us understand how visual design differs from UI design.

Visual Design vs. UI Design

Visual design and UI design are two disciplines that are not the same but supportive of each other. Sure, a web page can go ahead with UI design, but then the team will never be sure how it will perform as there is no research or proof to back that design up.

The user interface (or UI) design works only on how the element will look to the user. These designers are updated with current interface-related trends and what the user expects from an element.

Below, we will see the difference between visual design and UI design.

Let's take an example to understand the roles of UI and visual designers.

For example, a UI designer can create an appealing shape, but it falls on the visual designer to ensure symmetry (or natural balance), has an appropriate size, and is placed with consideration for overall balance. Taking the instance of a yellow button, although the UI designer establishes the button, the responsibility of making it the right shade of "yellow" lies with the visual designer, applying the principles outlined in this discussion, such as color harmony, contrast, and overall balance in the design.

Now that we better understand what UI design is compared to visual design, we will learn how visual design differs from graphic design in the following section.

Visual Design vs. Graphic Design

Graphic design and visual design are two professions that may look similar in their responsibilities and, hence, confusing to beginners. However, like a UI designer, a graphic designer separates himself from the visual designer and contributes in the same space to make a web page ideal.

Graphic designers are concerned with the graphics of web pages and talk directly with the clients to understand their requirements and business goals.

Below, we will see the difference between a visual designer, a graphic designer, and a UI designer.

For instance, a client is opening an aquarium and needs a website. In terms of graphics, they want an image of a shark on the landing page. A graphic designer's job is to make a shark as close to the client's requirement as possible. This will include their drawing expertise and creating real-like elements with properties like a shark would.

On the other side, a visual designer perceives this image, or graphic, as an individual element categorized under "shape." To them, it's just one among many shapes and lacks a direct connection with the client. Their focus is on confirming the design by assessing shape characteristics like symmetry and balance, ensuring geometric correctness. Lastly, the visual designer strategically positions this graphic on the web page to capture user attention without overshadowing other elements.

When seen from a high-level perspective, UI designers and graphic designers are more creative in the artistic field while visual designers are more inclined toward technical aspects of each element and subsequently of the web page.

Impact of Device Fragmentation on Visual Design

Addressing device fragmentation is one of the significant visual testing challenges in various design disciplines, including visual design, UI design, UX design, and graphic design. The continuous influx of new devices poses the need to plan, design, and test for each one, leading to increased complexity.

In 2023, various mobile manufacturers released 31 new devices. Each of these devices comes in various models that have different specifications. This happens each year, and when we combine these numbers with the types of devices available to access the Internet, the average device per person becomes as high as 13.4 in the United States:

The visual design relies heavily on the type of screen rendered, making device fragmentation a critical concern. Consider the example of a web page viewed on a mobile device after being designed for a test automation conference. The visual impact is significantly altered – the layout may seem overwhelming, text elements may appear crowded, and the overall user experience may be compromised.

Without careful analysis before deployment, web pages may display elements that are out of proportion, with some exceeding the viewport while others lose coherence. Visual designers must create designs that adhere to principles and characteristics regardless of screen size and device type.

How Do You Perform Visual Testing for Web Design?

The strategic placement of elements in the most optimum position could be limited to the visual designer's system. In most cases, that will be a desktop or a laptop. On the contrary, 92.3% of the people accessing the Internet are on mobile devices. This conflict can be resolved by releasing the page, waiting for negative responses, or testing it on all devices beforehand to avoid negative publicity and revenue losses.

For this, a visual designer needs an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform like LambdaTest for cloud-based visual regression testing. This eliminates the need to maintain in-house test infrastructure, making it a feasible option for testing web and mobile applications.

Here are some key features of LambdaTest:

• Test Diversity: Run tests on various real devices, browsers, and operating systems, ensuring comprehensive test coverage.
• Automation Infrastructure: It simplifies the setup of automation testing infrastructure, including Selenium Grid, making it easy to implement automated testing.
• Mobile App Testing: Leverage the real device cloud for mobile app testing, providing a realistic test environment for visual testing of mobile applications.
• Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrate with popular tools such as Jenkins, Jira, and GitHub, streamlining your testing processes and enhancing overall efficiency.
• Simplified Process: Despite advanced functionalities, LambdaTest is user-friendly, requiring just a few simple steps to get started. The platform is designed to be accessible to all levels of users.

This platform aims to simplify complex testing processes, offering a comprehensive yet accessible solution for individuals and teams involved in testing web and mobile applications.

To perform visual testing manually over the LambdaTest platform, you can follow the below steps:

Step 1: Create a LambdaTest account.

Step 2: From the Dashboard, select the More Tools option, and then UI Comparison.

Step 3: Click the + icon to upload a baseline image.

Step 4: Upload a baseline image from your system.

Step 5: Now click the Upload Comparison Image button to upload the comparison image.

Step 6: Once your comparison image is uploaded, click Run to start visual testing.

Step 7: To view your visual UI issues, click View Issues.

LambdaTest also offers an AI-powered Smart UI platform to perform automated visual regression testing at scale on an online browser farm consisting of over 3000 desktop and mobile environments. To run visual tests using LambdaTest, check out the documentation: Smart UI - Visual Regression Testing on Cloud.

Moreover, you can also go through the video tutorial below to get started with automated visual testing.

Subscribe to the LambdaTest YouTube Channel for the latest tutorials on Cypress visual testing, Playwright visual testing, and Storybook visual testing.

Once visual designers have validated their designs through either automated or manual testing, they can confidently ensure the durability and resilience of their web designs, ensuring a consistent user experience.

Best Practices for Visual Design

Lastly, before concluding this detailed outlook toward visual design, let's analyze a few best practices that will help in the visual design process and minimize the maintenance process in the future.

Be a color expert

The most important thing a visual designer needs to know is that they need to be a color expert. Colors are an integral part of the design and bring depth to the shapes and the web page when everything is ready. More so, colors can influence a user's decision and catch their attention at specific places.

They help control the behavior, which is extremely beneficial for the business. For all this to happen, the right colors must be placed in the right places. The designers should also know which color blends well with other colors in the surroundings and how all those colors look as one big picture. All this knowledge helps visual designers produce more than shapes and images.

Fewer words

As web design trends have advanced over the years, the text has become shorter and shorter. For instance, Netflix's sign-up page looked like this in 2005.

To this in 2023:

It is also true that too much text breaks the connection with the user and clutters the page. Users avoid such designs, so visual designers should also restrict themselves. An excellent practice to incorporate in visual design is to limit the text to writing only what is extremely necessary to be conveyed. For instance, in the above image, there is no way to let the user know that Netflix offers “unlimited” content. Hence, they went for the textual path.

Once the designers have finalized that something needs to be written, they should focus on limiting the words and conveying their message in minimum words. Finally, if long texts are required, it is best to divide them with images and other graphical content to retain the high interest of the user on the page.

Let elements breathe

Cluttered space is confusing to the user, and no element can showcase its significance in this space.

On the contrary, elements placed far away have their own space. If an end-user is looking around these areas, they have only single elements to focus on, which assures visual designers that none of their elements will be neglected. Hence, let these elements breathe out and define the areas with these elements and significant spaces.

Complete picture is as important as individual elements

The difference between the point of view of an end-user and a visual designer is that a designer has a technical eye that focuses on the properties of individual elements. They want each element to be perfect and resonate with the business goals. In this forage, they can miss the harmony among each of those elements, which would be the first impression to the end-user as they will see the web page as one picture. Such a practice of checking the harmony of the page should be contained in basic routines to ensure such a mistake does not happen.

Hierarchy matters

The order of size in which elements are validated is a de facto statement about their priority on a web page. This is a psychological element where a bigger element will be visible first and have a greater impact than the smaller elements. This is called hierarchy and is easily visible in current designs.

An excellent visual design practice is always keeping a fixed hierarchy for elements before they are put on a web page. Consult the team members and stakeholders and get to know the priority of elements according to the requirements. For example, if signing up is the most essential goal, put that second priority to the tagline of the business. The client may not always provide their data in hierarchy terms, but it becomes a visual designer's job to analyze and implement. Whatever the case, never miss hierarchy and never put elements in the same size to confuse the mind.

Cross-browser testing is as important as designing

What use is a design that contains all the principles and all the essential ingredients but is not visible to the user? Such scenarios are a common occurrence in websites that are not thoroughly tested. With so many devices working on different operating systems, browsers, resolutions, and various versions, each device may see the same HTML page as distinct. This produces render issues, which can only be resolved using cross-browser testing.

Cross-browser testing means testing the webpages and validating their correct working on all the target devices. This can be done manually or through automation but not by acquiring physical devices on-premise. Such practices can consume much time and cost more than the enterprise's expectations. In addition, if bugs are released without testing, it can cost even 100 times more, burdening the team and hindering normal execution. Hence, to avoid all this hassle, always perform cross browser testing, preferably with online visual testing tools to bypass on-premise infrastructure overheads.

Stick to visual design principles

Finally, referring to the section on visual design principles, it is clear that these principles provide validation and lay down the path for designers to work on proven methods mixed with their creativity. These principles are one of the most essential elements of visual design. Each designer should adhere to them even when their design contradicts them by changing the design rather than sacrificing these principles.

These are a few best practices that go a long way in designing jobs that depend on visual perfection, which, as we analyzed in this post, goes beyond just what we see to what we feel psychologically.

Conclusion

Visual design is the face of a web page. It evolves constantly based on technical advancements and connects to the user to amplify the user experience. This is the first step in ensuring the user will spend time on the website, which will eventually mean higher revenue. Naturally, it means that a lot of stakes are run on how the visual design of a web page is prepared. This makes it a focal point of research and innovation where the visual appearance is perfected, and the elements of the user's behavior are also explored.

However, this is just the first step. While it makes a user stay longer on the application, many more elements work in the same direction for the cause. This includes understanding technologies that work on the front end, like React and Python, or site builders like static site generators or WordPress. They breathe life into the application and are mandatory to create a great application. With this, all designers are advised to look beyond visual pictures and understand other web application components. It opens up the mind and helps convert those ideas to reality that connects with the user but also to the core of the application.