The user experience is arguably the most integral part of your website. There’s no doubt that people form an instant impression about your brand, based on the look and feel of your site. In fact, it takes about 50 milliseconds for people to judge your site. With so much riding on the digital side of business, it makes sense that hiring a website design company is a key focus.
When you think about it, it’s incredible that companies spend so much money on marketing every year, without investing in a top-end website. Ultimately, the website is where customers are won and lost, so here’s a few tips to keep yours on trend. Best of all, many of the tips are simple and you don’t even need a website design company to help if you’re reasonably tech-savvy.
Start the conversationWhite and minimalist
Have you noticed websites becoming less and less cluttered in recent years? Well, the good ones certainly are. White backgrounds are back in a big way, and there’s actually a bit of science behind it.
When a website design company talks about colour schemes, they’ll almost always recommend white backgrounds. Unless of course, it conflicts drastically with your branding. The reason is that website design is becoming more minimalist. Text appears in smaller chunks and graphics are used to highlight key points.
Here’s where the science comes in, and it’s actually pretty simple. On a white background, your eyes are automatically drawn to those key points of text regardless of where it appears on the page.
Headers and a call to action
Many modern websites now incorporate a huge header. In fact, some are even full-page, and this is becoming an increasingly popular trend. Remember the header still includes your menu, so you can position that anywhere you like. But this new trend makes the home page into one big header.
It may be a large block of colour, but usually there will be an image or other interactive element involved. The idea is rather than highlighting your business name in huge letters (customers already know which website they’ve clicked on, right?), you can use the focal point of the page to add call to action buttons. Usually, this should be your main service offering, or it could even change regularly to highlight special deals.
Playing with movement
Modern websites include movement right from the start. No clicking on a video frame; you just get something eye catching right from the word go. Examples include:
- Animations
- Video background
- Moving 3D images
- Gradual background colour changes
- 3D cursor animations
- Dynamic scrolling
These features give your website a modern edge, but be careful not to use too many. Firstly, it can affect page load speed. Also, you don’t want interactive element to be too distracting.
Focus on UX and UI
As we mentioned, the user experience is key to building an effective website. Also, you want to focus on the user interface. Making your site easy to navigate is crucial, because people tend to have the attention span of a gnat. If it’s too hard to find something, they’ll look elsewhere.
In short, keep away from clutter, use plenty of white space, and use multimedia to great effect. UX/UI is one area where you may need the help of a website design company, because they have the skills to increase page load speed as well as focus on great design.
So, if your website needs an overhaul, follow these tips and bring your business into the modern digital marketing age.
Start the conversationAbout Author
