Nothing scares off a user from a website faster than bad website design. Whether your website has an overly complicated layout or terrible graphics, its overall design and usability can give your organization a negative image. Ensuring good website design, therefore, not only brings in more traffic but also gives your business positive PR.
Although styles and trends do change over time, professional web designers know that the success of a website doesn’t depend on trends alone. In creating a website with an amazing user interface, which would translate to awesome user experience, certain rules apply. Here are some of the most important design elements to keep in mind:
Simplicity
Simplicity doesn’t mean boring. When it comes to modern websites, simple is best. Gone are the days of flashing banner texts and popup ads. The 21st-century internet user wants their website easy to look at and even easier to navigate.
A website user should get the entire message of your organization at first glance. To do this, you’ll need to remove all unnecessary visual clutter and text and let the message fly.
Easy Navigation
Your website should not need a learning curve. It needs to be intuitive, which means the navigational buttons for the different areas of your website should be easy to use. That’s not just us talking: a whopping 94% of consumers believe that websites must be easy to navigate.
Yes, it’s okay to be unique. Still, users will appreciate a simple drop-down menu more than a complex button that loads a 15-second animation and a codex to access the next page (well, some are pretty close to that).
Relevant Content
In marketing, there’s this popular saying: content is king. Amidst all the hype over making online marketing more visual and less text, the message of this saying still rings true. Content may include audio and video and still images, but they should be only the most relevant and value-added content for your users. It must be nothing more than what they want to know and nothing less than what they need to know. Ads, particularly, should be minimized and non-obtrusive.
Clean, Crisp Fonts
Sure, it’s tempting to use a unique typeface that will set you apart from your competition, but don’t go overboard and use some obscure, hieroglyphics-style font to stand out. Clean, crisp fonts, while not overly exciting nor unique, are easy to read and understand. It’s something that your users will appreciate.
And for heaven’s sake, do not use Comic Sans. Ever. Not even as a joke.
Diverse Media
An engaging website should use different types of media to portray your message. Don’t limit yourself to blocks of text, especially if a photo can deliver the same message. Keep your media necessary, but keep them diverse. Images, for instance, are worth a thousand words, but a video can be priceless.
There are additional factors that will make your business website successful among your customers and with search engines. But these five basic elements—keeping your website lean, easy to use, relevant, uncluttered, and engaging—will get your site going. And don’t use Comic Sans. Ever.
