A website’s footer is one of the most neglected and overlooked components of website design, so in this article i’m going to discuss how the footer is evolving in modern web design and how the footer space can be taken full advantage of to open up more opportunities for:
Traditionally, the footer is a very boring part of a websites layout, containing things like a contact link, privacy and legal links, and copyright information - usually run very plainly along one line, trying not to get in the way of the more ‘important’ parts of the site. This style of footer is common as it’s the last thing on a designers mind when making a website and is about as far below ‘the fold’ as you can get.
The whitehouse’s footer in 2007
The footer has far more potential than just plain text links and legals however. Luckily, many designers have noticed this and taken to a whole new method for creating footers. These footers are generally a lot bigger than the classic one line minimalistic approach - some even filling an entire screen. They are brilliantly designed to fit in with and cap off the website.
One argument for footers built in this way that i read all the time is that when a user has scrolled to the bottom of the page, a plain footer will often leave the user with no obvious place to go next - either scroll back up to the header or leave the page. A content rich and well designed footer will make it very clear where to click next and will increase the time the user will spend on the site, and how deeply into it they will navigate. Here are just a few methods for creating an effective footer:
Sitemap Footers
It’s very common in modern web design to place the website’s sitemap in the footer. If layed out well, the sitemap will give the user easily readable options for where to go next - though one could argue that with larger sites, having all those links could just get confusing and do just the opposite of what is intended. Here is an article discussing the SEO issues arising from using many links in the footer space.
Informative Footers
Footers can also help to inform or solidify a site’s message or purpose. Some good features to include might be:
- An ‘about’ section
- Social media links and streams
- An in depth contact form or map if appropriate
- Photos relating to the site’s subject or author
- Recent posts
It never hurts to recap important information from the top of the page in summarised form at the bottom, like a conclusion to what the website is trying to tell the user. A simple way of doing this is to just repeat the header nav as part of the footer. A ‘back to top’ button is also a good idea.
Illustrative Footers
Depending on the websites intended audience, faster internet connections will allow for more complex use of design without having to worry about slower loading times - as is always the case. The footer can be very illustrative and become an integral part of the site’s overall design. Large and nice looking icons make it clearer where to go next than just using a text link.
kulturbanause.de blog footer (German)
Paired with the benefits offered in usability, it’s a waste not to take advantage of the possiblities offered design-wise by a nice big footer - there are hundreds of examples of how it can be incorporated to make a well rounded, high usability page - and though there’s still a lot of different methods i haven’t mentioned, the creative possibilities are very open ended.