The business world has been completely swept up in the digital revolution. Nowadays, with smartphones becoming so common, online visibility has become marketing’s lifeline. An immersive web presence has grown in popularity as more and more businesses use the Internet to connect with their target audience.
Given the current business climate, it’s likely that people access your business through your website. And because a user’s first impression of your brand website can be formed in just seconds, it’s critical to get the web design right to avoid a poor bounce rate.
You need to make sure that a website visitor has a good user experience as they explore your business and transact through your website. You want to make sure that your website does everything it can to fulfill the user’s needs to turn casual visitors into potential customers.
Let’s examine the fundamentals of web design as well as some common mistakes that you might be unknowingly making and how they can impact your business.
What Is Web Design?
The process of organising content online through planning, conceptualisation, and design is called Web Design. Today, designing a website involves more than just its appearance; it also takes into account its overall functionality. User interface design, web apps, and mobile apps are all included in web design.
Elements of Web Design
It’s important to take both the website’s visuals and functionality into account when designing your website. The performance and usability of your site as a whole will be maximised by incorporating these elements.
Visual Elements
The building blocks of art and design are the visual elements. You will probably use at least one, if not several of these visual elements, regardless of what you are designing.
Here is a brief overview of the visual elements you should take into account when creating your website to make sure everything integrates effectively:
Fonts
Pick a font that works well with your design as a whole. The font on your website should complement the colour scheme, graphics, and images on it while also enhancing its overall tone. You can find the ideal match for your font with the help of tools like Canva’s Font Combinator.
Colours and Value
One of the most crucial factors to take into account when designing a website is the use of colours. It’s important to focus on colours that go with the overall look and feel of your website. Integrate your brand’s colour scheme with the messages you want to get across to your audience.
Value on the other hand is a term used to describe how light or dark a colour is. You could change the colour’s value even if your design only used one hue to add depth and contrast.
Shapes
When you use a line and connect it from one end to the other, you create a shape. Using pleasing colour and shape combinations can help focus visitors’ attention and improve the overall flow of your website.
Spacing
For websites to be aesthetically pleasing and simple to use, spacing is a crucial component. Your design will incorporate spacing in one way or another into every element. The right use of whitespace is essential to achieving the ideal balance between text, images, and graphics in a design.
Graphics
Logos, images, clip art, and icons are all examples of graphics that can be used to improve web design. These must be placed properly for user-friendliness, blending in with the website’s colour scheme and content, without clogging up the page or making it load slowly.
Videos
Web designers are increasingly incorporating video into their designs these days. When used effectively, videos can provide users with an understanding or experience that text or image alone cannot provide.
Written Content
The foundation of your website is your written content. The majority of visitors to your website seek to read your content, which is why it is so important for search engine optimisation.
For the purpose of producing a design that is cohesive and has balanced elements, it is crucial to have your content writers and designers collaborate.
Layout
The usability and functionality of your site will be significantly impacted by the way you decide to organise your content. There are a few key principles to keep in mind when choosing a layout, but there are no set rules to follow.
Avoid using an overly stimulating layout that might distract from the messages you want to convey and keep in mind the needs of your target audience.
Functional Elements
When designing your website, these functional elements must be taken into account. A properly functioning website is essential for high search engine rankings as it provides the best user experience.
Navigation
Navigation simply refers to the process of monitoring and managing movement around websites, screens, etc. It guides users to various web pages and prolongs website search durations. One of the key factors in determining whether your website is operating properly is its navigation.
Animations
Numerous web animation techniques exist that can draw visitors’ attention to your design and encourage interaction with your website by soliciting feedback. The addition of “like” buttons or forms, for instance, can keep website visitors interested.
User Interactions
Depending on their device, your site visitors can interact with it in a number of different ways (scrolling, clicking, typing, etc.). The best website designs make these interactions simple so that the user feels in charge.
Compatibility
A great design should look polished on all devices and browsers. Every design element that is incorporated into a website must display and perform flawlessly across all devices and browsers.
Iterative testing on actual browsers and devices is the only way to achieve this level of consistency. This requires testing every batch of design that is uploaded to staging using actual browser-device-OS combinations.
8 Common Web Design Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
Your website is the first thing visitors will see, and first impressions matter. When they land on your page, they can quickly assess your business. If the features on your website appear old and outdated or unattractive, it may leave a negative impression.
An effective web design helps in retaining leads and converting them into sales. This article will help you know eight of the most common web design mistakes to avoid while designing or redesigning your website.
Mistake #1: Overwhelming and Crowded
A visitor that comes to a crowded website may quickly become disoriented and overwhelmed. This happens when you use an excessive amount of vivid colours, too much text, or no breaks in the text, numerous fonts, different columns, or a lot of images and videos on one page.
The goal of a good web design should be to divide content into manageable chunks and steer clear of any competing features.
Mistake #2: Not Mobile-Friendly
A website with “responsive design” or “mobile-friendliness” automatically adjusts to the size of the screen it is being viewed on. This is an essential component of contemporary web design because an increasing number of people are using their mobile devices to search for goods and services, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years.
Mobile searches on Google are so prevalent that responsive websites are now given precedence in search results. Using the Google mobile-friendly test tool will show you how your website will appear when it is minimised, allowing you to determine whether or not it is mobile-friendly.
Mistake #3: Slow Loading Time
Slow load times are one of the most frequent website mistakes to avoid if you want to keep visitors’ attention. Google recommends that load times be two seconds or less. A web audit can identify the problems causing the slow speed and determine whether your website needs to be moved to another server.
Mistake #4: Confusing Navigation
You might have a layout with a pleasing colour scheme and useful content. However, if the navigation is confusing and difficult, it might irritate the user.
A good user experience is crucial to effective web design, and straightforward navigation is one of its most essential components. This could involve adding a mega footer with contact information and links to important information, placing a navigation bar at the top of the page, or making the logo clickable to return to the home page.
Mistake #5: Hard-to-Read Text
Text can be difficult to read for a variety of reasons, including colour, font style, and segmentation. A user will have a harder time absorbing the information if a website is difficult to read, which could disrupt the customer journey and lead the user to look to satisfy their need for information elsewhere.
If you are unsure of what to do, be sure to follow any font styles that experts recommend. Additionally, it’s important to divide your content into distinct paragraphs with headers so that a reader isn’t confronted with a long block of text.
Mistake #7: Odd Layout
The majority of websites employ a straightforward grid or linear layout, which provides users with a clear path for navigation. This entails creating a visual hierarchy, placing the most important information where users’ eyes are naturally drawn to it, and utilising colour and contrast to draw attention to calls-to-action (CTAs) or key selling points.
Mistake #8: Not Trusting a Professional
Since many new website owners still struggle with the fundamentals of web design, you run the risk of losing out on potential new customers if you insist on doing the design or redesign by your lonesome, which could have a significant negative impact on your business.
So, if you are new to building a website, it will be a huge mistake not to trust a professional to do the job for you.
A website is an essential part of your marketing plan. It must be carefully thought out, designed, and implemented. Then it needs to be managed, maintained, and promoted. If you need assistance from an established Melbourne website design agency, we’re here to help. Grab your lifeline now!
