Tips on Effective Web Designing

“Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers.”

Web Design is all about creating an informative website that fulfills both the user's expectations and business needs. Going for developing a website to promote their business/services, some like to present themselves by giving priority to the designing perspective. But most people do not use websites in order to be visually stimulated. Instead they go for finding information, making reservations or keeping in touch wit contacts. So web design makes sense when it is developed in the context of what the user expects and the business needs.

Design-for-designs'-sake can create a lot of conflict for both web designers and the users. While designing a new website or redesigning an existing one, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another important perspective that needs to be taken care of. In most cases, SEOs are often a big problem for web designers and vice versa. Both web designing and SEO are the extremely important features for creating an effective website. Because, if the visitors find a design unappealing, confusing or lacking in credibility, they are likely to click back. And if the website is not found in search engine results, that is a waste attempt for the business.

Keeping all these points in mind, this article presents a few guidelines for developing an effective website that caters to both the users expectations and business needs.

Understanding the Purpose of the Website

One of the most important aspect of web design is to clearly understand the purpose of the site, i.e., who, what and how of the website.

• Who will use the website?
• What will people use the website to do?
• How will people find the website?

Your site must reflect the values, needs and desires of your target audience. Put yourself in the users shoes. Figure out the characters to build up a profile that suits the user base. Try to point out the question that comes to you while first visiting a website as a user. Always remember that the primary function of your website is to understand what you want your user to do with your website. Accordingly, develop the site with proper layout, graphics and text to encourage the user towards taking that action. Nonetheless, focus on SEO, i.e., how the user will find the website while searching with a keyword. That means your site should be SEO friendly – fast, crawlable and rich with content.

Understanding the Visual Design Factors and Clarity

Both the graphical element of web design, and spacial relationships on the page, play a significant role in the process of web designing. As the saying goes, “ a picture is worth a thousand words”, ensure that the graphics of your website reinforce the values and needs of your target audience. Not only Appropriate and pleasing graphics, but also the form and text should convey the meaning of you purpose.

Try to split the pages up into headlines and short paragraphs. However, the shorter it is, the more important it is to design text for usability. Use proper keywords in heading tags. When somebody arrives at your site through a search engine, make sure that s/he can quickly and easily scan the page and find the keyword phase.

Clarity, both in terms of visual attraction and conveying meaning, is very important for designing a website. Unless you quickly convey a visitor that he is in the right place, there are chances of losing that visitor.

Crawlablity and Speed

The website which cannot be crawled is almost invisible to the search engines. Hence, include a Google Site Map to your website. Make your navigation text based, wherever possible.

The most important one is speed, i.e., how fast your page appears in front of the visitor when s/he clicks on your page. Speed is not just important, it is everything. Or else the visitor may click back. Hence, better to sacrifice graphics and features for speed, wherever it needs.

Branding

Branding is something that brings you an identity. Branding comprises some of the aspects such as how speed your web pages load at, clear layout, ease of navigation, tone of your writing, how quickly you answer queries, how quick and easy to contact you. Good Design motivates the audience towards your brand.

Conflicting Agenda and Structure

Web design is primarily about structure; the information flow; and facilitating the interaction. It is about expedite a process – the way people move around and follow steps. In spite of good presentation, a website will not be accepted if it makes process more complicated. Both style and substance are inseparable. Hence, both designers and SEOs must find a way in order to arrive at one goal: a successful web site.

Follow these tips while going for web designing. One thing is inevitable: motivate the audience to do something, i.e., buy a product, use a service, visit a location, or learn certain information. “The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.”

Posted in SRISYS Blog on April 1, 2011: http://srisysinc.blogspot.in/2011/04/tips-on-effective-web-designing.html