Your website is going to be one of the most public assets that you'll ever own. This is accessible by the general public, especially when your website is one that meets their needs. It's just but fitting that you'd ensure that your website design is made well. The website design process isn't something for you to rush, especially when your goal is to make your website as competitive as that of others.
If you're not an expert on website design, don't worry too much as there's room for you to learn. You've come to the right place, as you'll get to know some of the fundamental qualities of effective website design:
1. Mobile Compatibility
Thanks to the advent of smartphones, there are so many internet users who are browsing from their phones. After all, it's very convenient to pull it out at any given time. When you come to think of it, it's like today, people can't even be without their smartphones. Whenever they've got idle time, the smartphone is one of the very first things that they browse for information.
Because of this, you're missing out on so vast of an audience, if you don't make your website compatible for mobile use. By this, your website's format shouldn't be distorted once an internet user is browsing from a smaller screen. Everything should still be as it is, like when you're browsing from a bigger screen or a laptop. When this optimization for mobile use is met, you know that you’ve come up with a good design for your site.
2. Functional
Remember the very purpose of the existence of your website. It's there to solve a problem of the Internet user that's looking for these answers through your site. This could either be through the information that you're posting, if you have a blog or through the products and services that you're selling if your website is for this purpose.
As you go about designing your website, don't forget its functionality. For instance, because you're selling products and services, this should be achieved from the moment your site visitor opens your website until the transaction is completed. If this site visitor encounters any difficulty along the way, such as the payment portal or gateway cannot be completed, you can be guaranteed that no sale will be made. These frustrated internet users will leave your website and won't even bother revisiting.
3. Accessibility
Along with functionality should also come accessibility. Regardless of the age group opening your website, they shouldn't encounter any difficulty navigating through it. Here, you can also refer to accessibility as ease of navigation. If your website is so complicated to figure out, you're going to lose visitors, particularly those that aren't yet very well versed in Internet use.
Here are some quick tips to improve your site's accessibility:
- The colors of the text and the background should never clash with each other so that it's still going to be easy to read through.
- Use appropriate headings or tabs to group similar information or content for better organization.
- Apply alt tags or alt text, so that when the internet user is browsing from an internet source that can't open images, they still know what your media is all about.
- Make it easy to go back to the home page, no matter what page your site visitor has now jumped to.
4. Relevant Content
At all times, always post relevant content. This forms an integral part of website design, as no matter how well designed your website may be, if the content is of poor quality, you won't have visitors scrambling to open your site.
The test of relevancy is asking yourself whether or not the content that you're posting is something that internet users today are going to be very interested in reading about. Does your products and services solve the everyday problems of people today? It should.
Along with relevant content, make sure that whenever you post text, you structure it clearly and thoroughly to avoid looking too text heavy. You're going to want to have a format that's easy to read and scan through.
5. Page Loading Speed
Page loading speed is that number one determinant as to whether your page can be considered as "responsive." When you're browsing on the internet, don’t you want the page to load as soon as possible? All other internet users are also just as impatient as you are. No one wants to waste so much time just waiting for a page to load.
This is a demand that you're going to have to meet. Else, internet users are just going to jump off your site immediately, without even giving you the benefit of the doubt. When you're selling products and services, this means that you've lost potential customers, right there and then.
Final Word
Website design isn't something for you to take for granted. The success of any website is always dependent on it, as web design comprises all the elements necessary to achieve that success. As you strive to have an effective website, you and your team should not skimp on this process. Go through it very carefully and as thoroughly as possible. Start applying these tips, and you can be guaranteed a better and more effective website design.
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