Bootstrap is an HTML, CSS, and javascript framework that helps you create responsive web design quickly. It's perfect for designers who are just starting out with their career in web development. But it can also be overwhelming to know where to start when there are so many resources at your disposal! This post will go over the top tips that bootstrap web designers need to know about.

Tip Number One: Understand the Bootstrap Hierarchy

Bootstrap is built to be responsive, which means that it will adapt its shape and form depending on what device you're viewing it on. This makes things complicated when figuring out how your content should flow vertically. To get around this problem, bootstrap has a hierarchy of elements with containers at the top followed by rows and columns. This hierarchy helps us figure out how to stack the content on different devices, but it also helps determine where things should be positioned in relation to one another.

Tip Number Two: Know Your Tabs

Tabs are a great way of making navigation easier for your visitors and showing them what's available to them when they land on your page. The navigation is responsive, so it will also adapt to what device your visitors are using to access the site. This can be a great way of making sure that you're not just giving them too much information when they land on your page.

Tip Number Three: Navigation Bars

A navigation bar is an important part of any website because it helps visitors find their way around. The navigation bar is usually placed at the top of a page and should contain all the links that are available on your site.

Tip Number Four: Mobile-Friendly Design

A mobile-friendly design is crucial for web designers - not just because more people use their smartphones than they do desktops, but also because it helps make a website increase its visibility on search engines, which can mean more visitors.

Tip Number Five: Clean and Simple is the Key

When designing a website it can be tempting to want to pack in as much information into your site as possible, but this can lead to very messy looking websites. A clean and simple design which doesn't include too many different fonts or colours will keep visitors on your site for longer, meaning it can create the trustworthiness that your visitors need so they can take actions such buying a product, registering or signing up.

Tip Number Six: Use All the Space

The next thing to consider when designing your site is how you use all of the space. Remember that websites are designed on a computer screen and not printed out, so it's important to design for this; don't leave huge gaps where your text can be cut off halfway down the page or too little  space for the text to fit comfortably on each line.

Tip Number Seven: Sticky Menus

If you have a lot of content on your site, it can be hard to find what visitors are looking for if they do not know where to look. Adding sticky menus which stay at the top of your page will make everything easier as this helps the users navigate to new pages without having to always scroll back to the top.

Tip Number Eight: Limit Your Site's Width

When designing your site, you should make the most of the space available to you by limiting your page width. Not everyone has a huge screen and with more and more people accessing sites from their mobile devices it is vital that we do not frustrate them. My experience has taught me that it's best to make your website at least 1920px wide. Another standard width size for web design is 1280px. These two standards of 1280px and 1920px of width will look great on most laptops and mobile devices and even larger monitors. Before considering the width of a website, it's best to know on what devices it will be shown.

Tip Number Nine: Your Site's Height

Some people will argue that it doesn't matter if your site is too tall and scrolls vertically. They are right to an extent, but some research shows that people make more sense of a web page when there's less scrolling involved. One idea for reducing the height of your website is limiting the amount of content on a page.

Tip Number Eleven: Use A Color Scheme

A color scheme can make your website look really professional and appealing to visitors because it offers a cohesive design that flows nicely from page-to-page or element-to-element on your site. There are many sites out there which offer free tools for you to use in order to generate a color scheme, such as Paletton.

Tip Number Twelve: Use Bootstrap Components

Bootstrap has many reusable components that can be used to provide navigation, alerts, popovers and more. It's super easy for developers to customize each component to suit their website layout needs. All of the components that Bootstrap offers are free to use and customize. Some of the most common and useful components that I have used on the websites I have created are:

• Buttons
• Alerts
• Navbar
• Forms and input groups
• Tabs
• Carousel
• Social buttons

Tip Number Thirteen: Use The Grid System

The grid system makes it really easy to map out the layout for your website. It's a very flexible tool that allows you to divide up the space on your site and position different elements exactly where you want them. Bootstrap includes twelve columns in its grid system and are fully responsive out of the box and resized according to the device or viewport size.

Conclusion

We hope these tips have been helpful in helping you with your website design. If you're looking for a new or updated website, we can help! Our team of experts are ready and waiting to partner with you to create a stellar SEO or marketing plan that drives sales by considering how your customers think. Which of these Bootstrap web design tips have you applied to increase your developer skills?