Attractiveness & Usefulness have always been in comparison, as both are what everyone looks for. And so, it's always been a big confusion, whether to choose the most attractive thing or the one that's handy? Going into a shop, your eyes will definitely settle for that pretty dress in the glass case, without any further delay you would want to bring it back with you, but then comes the part of trying it. Once you put it on and feel it's not suiting you or it's not comfortable to wear, soon that very pretty dress becomes less appealing and you start noticing the flaws. Here you can notice the contradiction between design and usability—a pretty thing may not be usable, similarly a usable item may not feel good to the eyes. In personal life you may compromise one for the other, but when it comes to business, professionalism, and customers….what to sacrifice, Design or Usability? There is a BIG question mark!

Same comparison runs in the business world too, i.e. if you have a business website, you might be confused about its appearance. It's always important that your website should be user-friendly but at the same time, the look of the site must also be striking to grab the users' attention.

To get rid of all this confusion in a better way, you must first understand what design or designing actually is. Right away you might think of design in terms of colors, pictures and patterns, but honestly it's much more than that. Design is a concept too deep; it is something that touches all our senses unconsciously, and is present at every stage of making a website.

We mostly perceive web development and web design as two different concepts; here is when we misinterpret everything. Basically development of a website is not possible without first designing it. This ensures that the website design has full usability and provides seamless user-experience when completely ready. The web developers see a project at many stages, they work in accordance with the website's design, maintain accessibility, provide a pleasing appearance—keeping in mind that the functionality and usability are not sacrificed along the way. It can easily be said here that without designing, development is likely to fail. As much as design is important in our daily lives, so it is in the professional one—provided that it keeps usability by its side.

When starting with a web project, design is the first and foremost consideration. Not just for the sake of design, but because setting the design of the project in the beginning ensures usability later on. Design means locating the number of pages there will be, the site's controls, the goals, users expectations and convenience etc. the colors, pictures and patterns are secondary and usually come afterwards.

Always remember, instead of explaining or offering help on how to use certain features of your website…simply make it easy to use in the first place so the users don't have to seek for some help. Make it easily operable and you will successfully be able to have design and usability integrated.

Don't let your users get stuck at any point while browsing your site. Bear in mind, design is usability and usability is design—both are crucial for each other's survival. Sacrificing any one would be totally insane. The greatest sites in the world such as amazon.com and ebay.com do not try to impress their users with flashy images and complex navigation; instead they focus on clearness and simplicity in the designs. So NEVER let creative design overcome business practicality and usability, and vice versa.

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