Entourage sites. How important is design to create atmosphere and immersion?

Question

Graphic arts

Suppose there is a resource on the subject of myths, legends or just fairy tales. More precisely, one legend.

How important is it for design to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of a fairy tale?

I note that entourage resources usually have heavy graphics. Will it not scare away?

Answer 1

If the site provides for a long stay on it (if your legend needs to be read on the site), then it should not be too overloaded with graphics with a lot of details - nothing should distract from reading.

Answer 2

How important is design, you can ask Apple.
I personally think it's important. Heavy? Depends on the target audience. It doesn't scare me away, it just draws me in. I have a 20 Mbit channel in Krasnodar.

Answer 3

What problem are you solving? What will the user come to your site for, design or information? If the information utility tends to zero, then no matter what design it is, it will not bring the expected results.

Answer 4

I am not a designer or web developer, but I can share my own perspective on your question. In my opinion, a conducive design is necessary, but at the same time, it must be catchy. Personally, I like resources where the contributing part is achieved with details that you might not notice at first glance. The simpler the better. To make it clear what exactly I mean, I will give an example. Usually, when I see a person I know on the street, I go up to him and greet him, and some of my acquaintances do it differently, come up unnoticed, stop next to you, do not try to attract attention to themselves, but make it possible to notice themselves with peripheral vision, and after how they are noticed, welcomed.

Answer 5

The purpose of the site (with the same topic) can be different: entertaining, informational and news, popular science, scientific, etc. The "density" of the design should follow these goals.
For example, the Finnish site about the forest (or about the forestry serving it): w3.upm-kymmene.com/upm/forestlife/#lang=0 (very heavy graphics!) - occupies a popular science niche. Information is presented in the form of photographs (40%), text (30%), video (20%), audio (10%). The design is so closely intertwined with the content that it is very difficult to isolate it.
Or, arXiv.org with 100% text information and a-la "the early years of www" design. At the same time, the design is fully consistent with the content (scientific preprints) and ensures minimal distraction from the content.
So, having chosen a topic, it is worthwhile to clearly establish the purpose of the site and, accordingly, the style of presenting information. And with myths and fairy tales, uniformity is very difficult to achieve - they are very different: both lyrical, and dramatic, and heroic. Even if there is only one legend, it hardly contains one thematic plan. Here it is worth reading some book on aesthetics relating to this legend. Maybe refer to the history of book illustrations of fairy tales and legends or theatrical scenery.
Sorry for the big comment.

Answer 6

What is a typical site usage scenario? Is the user reading continuous long text? Switching between short articles of one or two paragraphs? Only reads, or responds to other users?
In general, it seems to me that the less the user himself takes active actions with the site, the more acceptable the entourage design is. If you constantly look for functional elements with your eyes, then a lot of non-functional graphics can interfere - and in the case when you stupidly read and read the text, it does not matter much.