Sandy, definitely, there’s been a trend recently to put beauty before function, and that’s just crazy. I admit, I love for my websites to look amazing, but legibility has to come first.

Hi Birgit, absolutely, simple is almost always better, especially for authors, where we want the book cover to be the star of the show.

A very helpful free tool that web developers use to preview many different screen sizes is Responsively, found at https://responsively.app/ You do need to download it, but it’s one of my must-have resources for checking how things behave on mobile.

I’m with you on this, Birgit! I’ve noticed that some site designers are more focused on aesthetics than usability — the site looks lovely, but it’s not as functional as it should and could be. As a site visitor, my biggest frustration is a small font in a light color that’s nearly impossible to read without enlarging the screen. Sure, it looks nice, but if people struggle to read your text, what’s the point of a website?

Sandy

I have just built my third website and, although my site builder gives me all sorts of fancy design options, I always wonder if they do not clutter up my websites too much, in particular on a mobile. Sure, the book pages look good on my iMac, but what about a 4″ or 6″ mobile screen? Choosing between an awesome design and something that works, loads quickly and looks good on a small screen is the greatest challenge for me.

Thank you, I’m so happy to hear it was useful.