Don’t be taken in by the latest fads and demand for every latest tool to be incorporated on your site. Website design is a vast job and can be done for a mere $99 to as high as $9999 and more. A lot of people are highly ignorant of why such a variation could exist. Hire a professional Website Design firm to get to learn more.
There are few basic rules that should never be forgotten in your enthusiasm while designing a new website or updating your existing site:
Point 1:
User’s skim and scan, rarely read: Visitor’s behavior on a website is quite similar to a person visiting a large store. They quickly glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on those links that catches their interest or vaguely resembles what they were searching in the first place. Today’s marketing world constantly bombards consumers with advertisements and messages trying to snare their attention. This has lead people to develop a defense mechanism against information overload, so they only take in what is needed while the rest is filtered out i.e. completely ignored. Keep the website as simple as possible. Don’t make the visitor hunt for information. Make it easy for them to find solutions to the problem that brought them to your website, don’t oversell, don’t confuse or make the browsing experience tiresome for them.
Point 2:Content Rules: Never compromise on the quality of the textual content on the website. No matter how attractive, up to date technologically speaking or design wise your website is, if the content is wrong, misleading, incomplete, boring or insincere the number of website traffic is definitely going to go down the drain. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
Point 3:
User’s are impatient and demand instant gratification: Don’t expect website user will take time to understand the navigation or layout of your site. Nor will they sit and twiddle their thumb while the page is loading. If you make them guess where they are and they are clueless of what next to do, or you make them wait too much while loading the page or while filling a tedious form, they are definitely going to hit the back button and leave your site.
Point 4:
Users are not 100% logical, they are intuitional: Users are not searching for the optimal solutions, but satisfying solutions. They are searching for the first reasonable solution they hit and want to stick to it. They don’t care about how things work as long as they can use them to their satisfaction. They don’t go methodically scanning and searching out all the options and selecting the best possible solutions. That is too time consuming and tedious for the average user. Generally they compromise and settle for the first reasonable solution they find. Out of sight is definitely out of mind. Make your website organic search friendly to ensure you do not lose that visibility.
Point 5:
Remove all question marks: This does not means remove question marks in literal sense. Make website obvious and self explanatory. The moment a user comes to your website, they should know why or what you are offering and how to take required action to get whatever you are offering. Make things crystal clear.
Point 6:
Follow the 3-click rule: It is usually found that if your website navigation requires users to navigate more than 3 clicks to reach information, they give up. In other words, the rule emphasizes the importance of clear navigation, logical structure and easy-to-follow site hierarchy. It is really important that visitors always know where they are, where they were and where they can go next.
Point 7:
Users develop Banner- Blindness and get irritated by Pop-ups: Web users tend to ignore everything that looks like advertisement and, what more interesting, they are pretty good at ignoring banners. Serious users who are searching for a solution to their problem are in hurry and have absolutely no patience of banner ads or irritating pop-ups. Large colorful animated banners or graphics get ignored while pop ups that snatch control from users, result in their leaving the site and forming a very bad opinion of the website.
Point 8:
Pleasing layout and design: It is always better to be cautious about the layout than go completely overboard and experimental. Unless you are absolutely sure about how to design your website and have strong reasons for being experimental, stick to the conventional website design layout basis your industry and competitor analysis. Use readable fonts (do not use more than 3 types of font on the same page), soothing colors, easy navigation panels, clear and precise language with proper use of white space. Don’t try to stuff too much information, keep all relevant information at the eye level, minimize use of scroll down option and remove confusing internal navigations.
Point 9:
Browser compatibility: Ensure the code of your website is clean and W3C validated. This would ensure the website is displayed in same manner on all internet browsers. Also ensure there are no dead links or navigation errors.
Point 10:
Take a pilot test prior making the site live and test often afterwards: After you’ve worked on a site for few weeks, you can’t observe it from a fresh perspective anymore. You know how it is built and therefore you know exactly how it works - you have the wisdom independent testers and visitors of your site wouldn’t have. Bottom line: if you want a great site, you’ve got to test. So ask someone who is not involved in project to test your website. Also regularly test your website to ensure it is up to date, all information is relevant and the functionalities are in keeping with your user’s requirements and current marketing plans.
The above lists are just basic pointers that will ensure that your website project is on the right track from the onset and costly ramifications can be avoided. An expert Website Design firm can share further such experiential tips that help make your site standout of competition and develop a good Web traffic base.
