Determine your Website Purpose
Good web design and development always caters to the needs of the user or users. You need to determine who your audience is and what they are looking for, whether it is information, entertainment, some type of interaction or to transact business with your business.
Communicate your services clearly and quickly
People on the web want information quickly, so it is important to communicate clearly, and make your information easy to read and digest. Some effective tactics to include in your web design include organizing information using headlines and sub headlines, using bullet points instead of long windy sentences, and being more precise.
Typefaces and Fonts
When developing a website, it is important to use fonts that are both recognized by standard web browsers and more specifically, using a font which is easier to read such as a Sans Serif font like Arial and Verdana. The ideal font size for reading easily online is 16px and you should stick to a maximum of 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes to keep your design streamlined.
Colors
A well thought out color palette can go a long way to enhance the user experience. Complementary colors can create a balanced looking website. It is also important to consider the user white spaceto provide a modern and uncluttered look.
The Appropriate use of Images
The saying goes that “A picture can speak a thousand words” and with a website, the right picture can translate to a thousand customers. Choosing the right images for your website can help with brand positioning and connecting with your target audiences. If you don’t have high quality professional photos on hand, consider purchasing stock photos to lift the look of your website.
You can’t get there from here – Navigation
Navigation is about how making it easy for people to take action and move around your website. Some tactics for effective navigation include a logical page hierarchy, using bread crumbs, designing clickable buttons, and following the ‘three click rule’ which means users will be able to find the information they are looking for within three clicks.
Consider using an “F” Pattern
Eye tracking studies have identified that people scan computer screens in an “F” pattern. Most of what people see is in the top and left of the screen and the right side of the screen is rarely seen. Rather than trying to force the viewer’s visual flow, effectively designed websites will work with a reader’s natural behaviour and display information in order of importance (left to right, and top to bottom).
People leave slow Websites
Everybody hates a website that takes forever to load. Tips to make page load times more effective include optimising image sizes (size and scale), combining code into a central CSS or JavaScript file (this reduces HTTP requests) and minify HTML, CSS, JavaScript (compressed to speed up their load time). There are many online tools to help you make sure that your website is loading properly.
Responsive, Responsive, Responsive
It is now commonplace to access websites from multiple devices with multiple screen sizes, so it is important to consider if your website is responsively designed. If your website is not responsively designed, you will lose customers as well as search engine rankings.
OptfinITy can help you build a professional website
For more information on what it takes to build a professional website, complete the form to the left or call us at 703-790-0400.