When it comes to designing or redesigning a website, it is elementary to get completely focused on aesthetics. “The shade of yellow just doesn’t look right…..Should I place the company log on the left-hand side of the screen?….. How about putting up a massive GIF at the center of the page?”
These are some of the questions that you might have when it comes to designing your website from scratch. However, to make your site accomplish everything, including lead generation, brand awareness, etc. it is crucial to concentrate on more than merely how the website looks.
We are living in a world where there are more than a billion websites that can be founded on Google. Hence, it is imperative to ensure that the website design that you opt for is optimized for usability and user experience. The very first thing to achieve these things for your website is to avail the services of a prominent web design company in Toronto.
In the forthcoming paragraphs ,we will focus on the fundamental principles of exceptional web design.
Simplicity
While the look of your website is vital, most of the visitors will not care about how slick the design is. They would rather be concerned about completing an action or finding a specific piece of information. If you add unnecessary elements of design to your website, it will only make it tough for your visitors to fulfill what they wish to accomplish.
When it comes to usability and UX perspective, simplicity is the best move forward. There are different ways to do it.
Colors
Try to keep it minimal. A maximum of five different colors is enough for your website design.
Typefaces
The typefaces that you opt for should be legible at a bare minimum. There should be a maximum of three different typefaces in the same number of distinct sizes.
Graphics
Opt for it only if it serves your visitors to complete their objectives on your site. Never add graphics just for the sake of it.
Visual Hierarchy
Just like simplicity, there needs to be a visual hierarchy that helps you to arrange and organize the website elements in such a way that visitors naturally get attracted to the most significant elements first.
A point to remember: The visitors of your site need to complete a specific action. Your objective should be to ensure that they are able to do so in the most natural and enjoyable manner. One way to do that is by optimizing for usability and UX. Try different position, size of certain elements and colors. This way, you can structure your site in the best possible way so that visitors can easily get attracted to these elements first.
Navigability
It is important to have intuitive site navigation so that your visitors can easily find what they are looking for. Ideally, you want your visitors to arrive at your site and do not waste their time on deciding where to click next. It should be painless to move from one point to another in a hassle-free manner.
Here are some of the tips to keep in mind while optimizing your site’s navigation
- Ensure that the primary structure of your site is simple and near the top of your page.
- The navigation needs to be at the footer of your site.
- Employ breadcrumbs on every page except the homepage so that visitors can know about the site’s navigation trail.
- Insert a search box on the top of the site so that visitors can search for things that they are looking for through keywords.
- Never have too many navigation buttons on the page as it will confuse your visitors.
- Have a maximum of three levels of navigation for the best results.
- Have links within your pages and ensure that you make it clear where these links will take the visitors.
Last point: Once you have decided on the top navigation of your site, stick with it. The labels and navigation location need to be at the same location on all webpages.
Consistency
Apart from keeping the site navigation consistent, it is imperative to ensure that the overall look and feel of the website is consistent across all the pages. Some of the areas where you can have a positive impact on usability and UX are backgrounds, color schemes, typefaces and even the tone of your writing.
This does not mean that you opt for the same layout for every website page. You should rather have distinct layouts for different pages like layout for landing pages, a layout of informational pages, etc.
Once you use these layouts consistently, it will make it easier for your visitors to easily comprehend the type of information that they can find on a given page.
Accessibility
According to comScore,tablet internet consumption grew 30% between 2013 and 2015. Smartphone internet consumption, meanwhile, grew 78% during the same time period. In simple words, it means that for a truly amazing user experience, it is important for your site to be compatible with different systems used by your visitors.
In technical terms, it is called as responsive design. With this kind of design, it becomes possible for you to automatically resize the content and reshuffle the dimensions of different devices a visitor might be using.
You can also improve the accessibility by adding alt-text to all your images to ensure that those who cannot see the images on their browser can at least understand what you are trying to say. The ultimate objective is to ensure that your website provides a superlative experience across varied platforms. This can be achieved through platform-centric design conversions.
Conventionality
There are specific web design conventions that have become more familiar with internet users as the time has passed by. These conventions are:
- Placing the main navigation at the top or left side of the page;
- Placing the logo at the top level or center of the page;
- Having a clickable logo so that visitors can go back to the homepage;
- Links altering color/appearance when the visitors hover them.
Although it might seem that these conventions should be thrown out of the window to maintain originality or uniqueness, this would be your biggest mistake. To provide the best experience to the visitors, it is vital to take advantage of the web experiences that you are already familiar with. This can be a piece of essential information that can make it easier for your visitors to navigate.
Final Thoughts
To ensure maximum marketability of your website, we suggest you take help from a prominent digital marketing agency in Toronto that can help you grow your business by manifolds by ensuring that your exceptional web design gets the due credit from the visitors.
