User-Friendly
Your website is built for users as a front for your business online. As a result, it has to be simple enough for them to understand and access the information provided therein. It’s no use having a host of complex functionalities if users can’t find a way to access them.
Functionality is at the core of any website. As a web designer, it’s your prerogative to ease those functionalities into attractive designs which are appealing and yet easy to use for your customers. If your functionalities are improperly integrated with poor design, it leaves you vulnerable to the loss of potential consumers who may end up with your competitor’s business.
Mobile-Responsiveness
A mobile-friendly design, or mobile responsiveness, is optimizing a website to be aesthetically pleasing and fully functional across mobile devices. In the past decade, mobile phones have taken over the majority of online searches, which means that an overwhelming number of people access the internet on their mobiles. Moreover, approximately one in every third American shops online using their mobile device.
Therefore, it’s pivotal for your website design to be completely responsive to mobile phones. Any potential customer who visits your site via their mobile phone will leave you high and dry and turn to competitors if your website is difficult to access or navigate.
Furthermore, Google had outlined the value it places on user experience with its 2020 core web vitals update, which seeks to award sites with a superb user experience. So, in addition to higher bounce rates, a seamless user experience is also critical to getting your website ranked in search engines results.
Navigation
Navigation is the first and foremost challenge that a skilled web designer must overcome. Navigation refers to a user’s movement from one page on your website to another. The navigation of any business website should be as simple as possible for the user to understand and access the information they need. It’s no use if you have a large chunk of visitors who have a hard time extracting the information they want from your website.
A key aspect of navigation is the menu bar, which is visible on top of all web pages and includes internal links to other pages on your site. The menu should consist of four or five tabs with related pages organized under each. Ensure that your menu doesn’t include a list of tabs, which is likely to confuse users.
The common practice is to have an ‘about us tab and a ‘contact us page along with a page that displays your products and services. If you have a website with multiple complex functions and functionalities, you can add a secondary menu as a sidebar containing links to other pages. Avoid cluttering too much information in a single menu bar; you can add another section at the bottom of your web page to declutter tabs and internal links.
Lastly, users should also have the option to visit your homepage from any internal page with a single click.
Layout
If your website has a layout with multiple columns on a page, you need to exercise caution. As stated above, your web designing team has to emphasize segregating your web pages and avoiding cluttering.
A well-designed layout helps users to understand the contents of a web page and also find other relevant content on a different page.
The same also applies when you’re placing content on your website. Ensure to have a combination of graphics and text to help users easily understand the message you want to deliver to them. Having too much text may cause monotony and overload the user with too much information.
Content
Content is everything. Your site’s content conveys meaningful information to the user and helps to take any action based on the message in it. Content is synonymous with the design in providing a seamless experience to users in your website.
Once you have the desired content in mind, you should place them in your design accordingly, which enhances its readability and engagement. It’s important here to adhere to the practice of creating content first and then shaping your design in a way that maximizes its appeal.
Color
A standard practice in web designing is to derive the primary colors from the brand logo. But that’s not always the ideal thing to do.
Logos are a single image representation of your brand, which may consist of visually appealing colors with the ability to be retained in your customer’s mind. However, the same palette on your website may not be as impressive when combined with a static background color or image.
Try not to include too much flash in the core coding of your site, as it may affect readability on certain pages. Adopt a minimalistic approach with simple and soothing color themes for your website, which resonates with your brand. Remember, in the end, you’ve to keep the functionality and usability of the site in mind.
Page Load Speed
The load speed of a web page is a component of user experience. As per numerous studies, an overwhelming majority of users will leave a site if it consumes too much time to load. This should be a top priority when designing a website, especially if you’re an eCommerce business, as your page load speed will have a direct consequence on the purchasing decision of users.
As a designer, it’s your job to optimize the load speed of every web page so that it doesn’t take more than 3-4 seconds. A second more than that, and it may cost you a valuable prospect. Moreover, page load speed will also affect your page rankings on Google and other search engines.
To improve your pages for load speed, ensure to optimize images, videos, and GiFs for quick downloads and have hosting solutions that can handle the required bandwidth.
Call-to-action
A call-to-action, or CTA, is a button on websites that asks the user to take any action, like signing up, furnishing contact details, downloading content, etc. Every business website should have a call-to-action, whether eCommerce, a service website, an online directory, etc.
Encouraging users to take action is highly beneficial for your business. Not only does it help in higher conversions, but it also gives your sales team several prospects to work on and formulate strategies to keep them moving down the sales funnel.
A CTA button should be visible, attractive, and inviting to the user. It should be clearly distinguished from the rest of the page content and ideally placed on top of every web page so that users don’t have to hunt for a call to action.
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