A good, user-friendly website is everything. It is the “face” of your project, the platform to share the results of your work on, and an efficient tool to boost your client network. These are just a few reasons why you should make the website creation process very seriously. So let’s get to the great truth of what makes a good website and the reasons why you need it to be ideal.
Importance of a good website design
The great design of your website is key to the successful outcome of your idea. Making it user-friendly allows you to gain trust and get great feedback from your clients. Also, the experience of your customers while they visit your website is an essential part of your communication with them. How you engage them initially defines your future cooperation.
More to that, if the design of your website is just right, it will help your potential customers navigate right to what they need without any additional effort or stress. Meaning, your user-friendly website transforms into an efficient tool for making your business both profitable and client-oriented.
There are several components of a great website. Mix them together, and you’ll get an ideal one.
First impression is everything
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about what makes a great website is the visual part of it. A good website design is the first thing that should be noticed by your potential customer when they visit your webpage for the first time. It’s like in real life when you meet someone; you usually judge them by their looks first and then by their “content”. For this reason, good website design is an essential part of your online business representation.
Know your audience
Before even beginning to create a mockup of the future website, you need to think about your target audience. Are they people of business, IT professionals, or just common people who need your services? This will help you understand better how to shape your vision of your future website.
Your webpage can look more professional and business-oriented with a simple, minimalistic design. Or, it can be entertaining with colorful visuals or moving pictures. It all depends on what will make your potential clients want to begin cooperation with your business.
Also, before creating a good website design, it is better not only to define your target audience but also to understand the purpose of your webpage. It will simplify all further steps, including the choice of style, visual and textual content, etc.
Pick your style
This website design principle is very simple. What makes a great website is a unique style. You should find out what represents your business in the best way and what will help you become different from other websites.
In order to make this process easier, you can take a look at some of the most popular website design trends. Here are some of them:
- Minimalism
- Bright Colors
- Videos
- Unconventional Navigation
- Glitch Design
That’s if we’re naming just a few. The trends are changing perpetually, and it’s important to keep an eye on them. But what will always stay with you is the unique style of your website design and its original concept.
High-quality visual content
No one can deny that in order to make your website design rock, you need high-quality multimedia content. You cannot create a great website without including visual content like pictures or videos in it. Moreover, it should be of high quality; otherwise, it can ruin even the most spectacular design. Surely, you can use stock photos, but it is better to use your original visuals to create a unique style for your website.
There are plenty of examples of good design with interesting visual solutions, so you can see how they transform a regular website into a great one.
Check out Pixetic creative design solution for Puppet Theatre
Functionality is the key
Functionality is what makes a website user-friendly. What’s the point of an outstanding website design when you can’t find the information you need, and it is working very slowly? Everything should be in balance.
User-friendly navigation
The first thing you need to think about when you’re considering the functionality of your website design is user-friendly navigation. Clear, logical navigation is the essential element of what makes a good website. Everything should be in order and aimed at giving your webpage visitors the best experience.
There’s a great website design principle called the “three-click rule”. The logic behind it is simple. Your potential customers should find everything they need in three clicks. This what makes a website user-friendly.
One of the trends is an unusual navigation design when the conventional menu position is moved from the top or side of the website to a different location. Sometimes, there is no menu at all. Instead, there are some other solutions on how to navigate throughout the webpage. This design idea can help you to stand out and add some more creativity to your business representation. But remember it should always be user-friendly, otherwise your website visitors will just be irritated with it.
Check out Pixetic navigation design for BEAR ANALYTICS
Speed is important
Internet users are known to be not the most patient people in the world. If they visit your website and they wait longer than a couple of seconds for the page to upload, they will probably go to another one. Therefore, you need to think in advance about the speed of your website and how long it will take for its content to download.
An excellent solution for that can be the optimization of your video, audio, and other visual content. This will boost the speed of your website and will enhance your audience’s experience with it.
Don’t let the simple mistakes ruin the users’ impression of your website and all the effort you have put into making it perfect.
Don’t forget about website checklist
The principle of both the visual and functional parts being perfect is how they’re up-to-date. This means checking whether all the links, menu pages, and other functions of your website are working properly. You don’t want your potential client to find what they actually need on your webpage and then not to be able to get in touch with you. Or they simply can’t find the proper page with the product they are looking for.
You should also check your homepage and see whether everything is in order. This is the front door of your webpage, and you will really want the first impression you make on your future clients to be ideal.
Also, make sure whether all of your media content works how it supposed to and that everything looks fine.
Remember the mobile version
The important thing about a user-friendly website is the creation of a mobile version of it. You have to think about the fact that we’re living in an era when most of the content is consumed through mobile phones and other portable devices. Therefore, if you wonder how to make a good website, you also need to consider how it will function in the mobile version.
Another option can be to create an app for your business. However, in this process, you still need good design solutions for your main webpage as usually your app would be created in the same style and even with the same colors.
Check out Pixetic mobile version design solution for Metis
What makes a website visually appealing?
The visual part of your website is extremely important and can’t be neglected as the visual appeal of your website shapes the first impression of the user who visits it. Therefore, what makes a truly great website is good visual design. To understand how to make a website look good, let’s break down the essential info about a visual appeal in terms of website design.
What is visual design?
Visual design and UI design sometimes are considered the same thing. Visual design in its essence is a combination of UI design and graphic design and is focused on the visual part of a digital product rather than functionality.
Visual design relies on visual aesthetics and is based on visual messaging and communication. It helps to capture the user’s attention towards your brand by communicating the ideas to the viewers in an engaging and clear way. Its main goal is to make a website visually appealing by using visual elements – the foundation for a website’s visual communication.
Any website’s page or screen contains the essential visual elements: fonts, lines, shapes, colors, textures, volume, and negative space. They are the basics used by designers for your website’s visual design to make it visually appealing.
Importance of visual design: visual appeal vs usability
You might ask if the visual design that important. You’ve got a website that has great functionality and usability, should it also look great? According to the research, yes.
Christine Phillips’s research concludes that the visual appeal of your website is more important than usability. It shows that visually appealing websites, even with worse usability, will get a more positive feedback. Aesthetics play a crucial role when it comes to shaping the first impression of your website.
The reason for this is a confirmation bias: people usually look for confirmation of their initial impression of the website. Therefore, people usually immediately judge the book by its cover and don’t change significantly their opinion even when faced with usability issues and will rather compromise usability over visual appeal. Also, high visual appeal generates more trust and makes users feel more secure.
Of course, you still need to invest in the usability of your website, even if it’s visually beautiful. The points above only prove how important visual design is for your website. Great usability is an indispensable part of any good website. Because if you neglect it, with time, the user will notice usability issues (especially if they must complete the task quickly) and might never return to your site again.
How to make your website look great
Now when you understand the importance of visual design and how it influences the user’s impression of your website, it’s time to find out how to achieve a great-looking website. Here are some tips to make your website visually appealing.
1. Eye-catching visual design
One of the primary goals of visual design is to attract attention. This is essential to engage visitors with your website. As we’ve seen in the research mentioned above, people are attracted to visually pleasing websites and value their appearance even more than usability. Therefore, your website design needs to impress visitors from the first look.
2. Keep only essential content
To reduce cognitive load and make your website’s design clear and visually appealing, you should focus only on the essential content: both visual and textual. You should leave only those pictures and text that help users to find what they came for and complete their goals efficiently.
3. Simple layout
When it comes to creating a visually appealing design, you should keep your layout simple but not boring. Try to create clear, functional, visually pleasing layouts to make sure it’s easy for users to navigate your website and everything is accessible for them.
4. Pick a captivating color scheme and clear fonts
One of the tips on how to make a website look good is to pick the color scheme wisely. It should grab the user’s attention but should not overwhelm them. It’s better to pick three or four colors: the main color, one or two accent colors, and font color. Also, if you have an established brand then use your branding colors to make your website consistent with it.
Moreover, don’t forget about consistency within your website. For example, all CTA buttons, titles, etc. should be in the same color. If they aren’t, it will influence customers’ impression of your website.
Also, when it comes to fonts, pick the one that is visually balanced and unique to make your website. It should be consistent with your website’s design and should be readable.
Examples of great-looking and user-friendly websites
There are many examples of visually appealing websites with enhanced usability to inspire you. Here are some of them to help you create a great-looking website.
- Craie Craie creative interior design studio
- Crazy About Eggs
- Zero impact
- Milk makeup
- Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum
- Twigs Paper
- Le Mas du Palus
- Melopoin Organic Thyme Honey
What makes a good website is a creativity
Creativity is one of the main components that make a good website. It is always better to come up with an interesting original idea when you’re creating a new project. For the ideal website design, it can be essential to stand out in order to attract the attention of potential clients.
The great thing would be to combine the most popular website design trends with something fresh and original. The original ideas are usually more valuable than the ones used by the majority of other businesses. So, in order to make your business idea work as you meant it to, you will surely need a website that you use for its representation to be perfect.
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