There are numerous types of web design, ranging from simple website templates and build-your-own website builder apps to complex managed content and e-commerce web design used by major corporations such as Amazon, eBay, and Tesco.Some companies, even some big-name companies, have unprofessional looking and poorly designed websites. Some have amazing looking websites, but due to their high graphic content and minimal text content, it can take a while to load. They are not user-friendly and they do not provide what the visitor wants.
Excellent website design
Although many aspects of website design differ from one site to another, many things remain the same across most websites on the Internet. The most important thing is the navigation or menu. The way a website menu works and looks is very important because, ultimately, website visitors are looking for certain criteria that will make them either stay and interact or leave. This ability of a website to keep visitors interested is sometimes referred to as “stickiness. Visitors want a visually appealing experience, but perhaps more importantly, they want “ease of use.” Website usability is a key factor for websites that want their visitors to stay, make an inquiry, and ultimately purchase.
User-friendly Web Design
Internet users tend to prefer easy-to-use websites because they don’t want to have to learn how to use a website every time they find a new one. They should be able to use a website after just a few seconds of looking around the home page, and then they’ll leave and browse somewhere else. The need for quick user interaction is vital, and therefore having a fast-loading website is also important for a site to succeed. Even with faster internet connections like broadband, internet users don’t want to wait.
Imagine if you go to a high-street shop and are totally ignored by the salespeople at the counter for 5 minutes, even after you have made it clear that you want help. There is a correlation here with how an internet user may feel when they arrive at a website that has been poorly designed, is difficult to use, unfriendly, and slow to load. Ensuring that a website has been well thought out and designed with the user in mind; displays a company’s unique selling points within easily recognisable calls to action; and has a clear and easy-to-use menu is key to its success.
Web Design in Flash
With recent advances in web design, such as the introduction of Flash animation and high-definition video content, impressive websites have been produced to take advantage of much higher levels of visual effects and interaction. However, with this “high-end” web design comes a price. More often than not, web designs that rely heavily on Flash content are often ridiculously slow to load. They often have a progress bar that slowly scrolls through the web browser to indicate when the website will finish loading.
This is a lot like the progress bars you might be familiar with if you use video editing or 3D rendering software, or if you use game consoles where they are displayed while you wait for games to load. In general, Internet users do not want to wait 3–5 minutes for a web page to load, even if it has high-resolution images, animation, or video. They want fast websites with rich, informative content. If he wanted to watch an animation or a video, he would watch TV.
Flash Web Design Bundle
This is not to say that Flash animation is bad news and should not be used in web design. If used subtly and in small amounts, it can make a website more visually appealing without slowing down load times too much. Appropriate uses for Flash animation in web design are things like Flash banner ads, Flash videos, and interactive Flash forms for online surveys or business presentations.
However, using Flash for an entire website is not such a good idea. It slows down the user experience because they have to wait for its elements to load. Also, sites developed entirely in Flash tend to use unfamiliar menu structures and functions. This can confuse visitors who just want to quickly interact with the website and not be amazed by how the menu is animated. Just because you can do these things in Flash doesn’t mean they have any real work value in the real world. They may look nice, but if they are not functional and only irritate the visitor, then they have no real value.
SEO and Flash Web Design
Another argument against using Flash to create an entire website is that it dramatically reduces the effectiveness of your website’s search engine optimization. Flash web designs are made up of a main file in a web page that search engines find difficult to index. This is because the text in them is usually graphic text and therefore not usually accessible by search engines. Some recent changes have made it possible for search engines to see some text on Flash sites, but this isn’t nearly as useful as text on traditional HTML-based sites.
Do not delete Flash in web design.
Although Flash has limitations, it also has its good points if used correctly. For example, Flash animation is usually smaller in file size than traditional gif animation, and because of the way it’s made, the animation flows more smoothly than gif animation. That said, I would recommend using Flash only in small areas of a site to complement other images that make up the overall design. Finding a balance between minimal graphics, images, Flash and good quality informative text is the key to a successful user-friendly website. This does not mean that web design has to be boring. By working with quality web design companies, there’s no reason why you can’t have a visually engaging, well-designed, user-friendly, and successful website.
Web design that is visually appealing
When visitors first land on a website, they want to be impressed and engaged with what the website has to offer. This will be determined by the ways in which the web designer has presented the text, images, and content features of the website. Arranging elements such as images, text, graphics, flash, and video in a way that keeps the visitor interested in the site is the key to good web design. If a website has a poor design and does not grab the visitor’s attention in the first few seconds, then it can be dismissed as just another ordinary website. This ultimately means that the visitor will go elsewhere to spend their time and, more importantly, their money.
Aspects of good web design
A lot of time and money is spent on making sure that the right elements of websites are positioned in the right places. Companies spend large sums of money conducting research on how Internet users use their websites. This type of research shows where visitors’ eyes focus most, what elements of the site they click on first, and how they generally interact with and use their sites. Most internet users will primarily look from the top left, either across the page or to the left side of the web page, via an internet browser, via a computer, mobile phone or television.
I would hazard a guess that they are looking for the company name or logo, their main selling points or slogans, and then what the site has to offer in terms of what is featured on the menu. After which, their eyes are likely drawn to the content of the page and to the right. Successful web design usually takes this into account and will ultimately affect how a website looks.
There are, of course, quite a few famous exceptions to this rule. For example, a fairly well-known search engine has a web design that is quite different. The main focus and core functionality in their website design is at the very centre of the page. However, this is no ordinary website with dozens or even hundreds of pages of products and services to display. Its main focus is the recognisable logo and, of course, the search box. However, it features a small minimal menu at the top of the web design that flows from left to right. So even they have taken on board some of the research undertaken on the habits of internet users. If you look at websites after reading this article,