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UI Design Web Design

7 Handy Tips To Improve Your Website Design

Website Design

It is a known fact that today’s business is conducted online. From shopping to marketing, to communicating with providers, people depend on the Internet to help them perform everyday tasks. Without a website, businesses, blogs, and brands can’t be successful. That’s the reason why everyone is on the internet today. With millions of websites, it becomes extremely challenging to stand out from the crowd. A website usually has 4-5 secs to create an impression on visitors; that’s very little time. Therefore, website designers must ensure that they create a website design that ensures a delightful, user-friendly experience.

We often talk about the latest design trends, user experience enhancement, interface enhancement, and a lot of other things. The idea is always to keep improving the website experience by offering the best. However, a lot of times, we tend to forget some basic actions which can elevate the website design and experience to a whole new level. Here are a few tips.

Use White Space

First things first – Whitespace doesn’t mean a lot of white color, its the way designers term the empty space or negative space. Research and studies suggest that the use of white space in the left and right margins, and in between paragraphs, increases reader comprehension by almost 20 percent. Adding white space means more user interaction, the page looks better, and you can highlight your CTAs with more ease if you have enough white space to go around. It balances the visual elements by creating a visual hierarchy. Whitespace increases content legibility and acts as a separator.

Optimize The Page Speed

Website speed has long been discussed in the world of marketing, and it’s one of the main reasons why a lot of visitors bounce off from certain websites. People are impatient on the internet. They don’t like to wait and expect instant responses to their queries. If your website doesn’t load within a few seconds, to be honest, 2-3 seconds at the max, the visitors will most likely bounce off looking for other options. 

You can check your page load speed through a Google-free service, where you can get information on your page speed. Google will also offer you some suggestions for improving your page load time on Mobile and Desktop. 

To improve your page speed, start by compressing all your images before loading them onto your website. The image file size is one of the leading causes of a slow page speed — using websites like compressor.io can help you dramatically speed up each webpage you own. There are several ways to optimize page speed.

Create a Responsive Website Design

With the revolutionary advancement of mobile and other devices, your website is most likely to be accessed from devices other than PCs and laptops. It’s critical that your website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate no matter what type of device your audience uses to access it. 

Google started penalizing sites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices from 2015, making the need for responsiveness even more crucial. This is probably the most valuable way to improve your website’s usability. A responsive design will do wonders for your website in terms of SEO and will help you position yourself higher in SERPs. So, create a mobile version of your website, use mobile plugins, and convert your website into a Responsive Web Design (RWD).

Make a Clear Call To Action

Some interesting facts – SAP found that orange CTA buttons boost conversion rates by 32.5%, while Performable found that red CTA buttons boost rates by a whole 21%. In creating buttons for your website you should think about color and the psychology of color. Different colors evoke different messages. Think about the message that you want to evoke for a user (trust, experience, intelligence) and choose your colors wisely. 

A second thing to consider is the actual words you use for your buttons. The words should include a verb or an action word that excites the user to do something. Use actionable words in them such as discover, start, learn, etc. Calls to actions (CTAs), clearly marked with an action word enable your website users to more easily navigate your site and get exactly what they want in the location they expect to find it.  

Utilize Social Media To The Fullest

22 percent of the world’s population is on Facebook, Instagram has 800 million active monthly users, Linkedin has more than 540 million user profiles, and Twitter has 100 million daily active users. These figures are staggering, which is why it’s important for your website to offer social buttons to your visitors. There’s a chance that they will like what they see, share their thoughts on their profiles, and boost your presence even further. 

Any website improvement ideas should involve taking advantage of social sharing and social following. Social sharing options are a fantastic way to improve website design. Use social media icons of different social media sites to allow users to share your content. The idea is to get guests to share your content when they like what they read. Sharing content puts it out for everyone else to see without you having to do any work. This will allow your website to become more popular and gain site visitors that would have never known about you otherwise.

Use Eye-Catching Images In Website Design

People across the Internet are getting smarter and faster at judging company websites before deciding if they want to browse the site further. When they first visit your site, they can easily pick out a generic stock photo they’ve already seen elsewhere or that resembles the non-personal style of stock photography. Using stock photography can decrease trust and also stand out as generic and non-unique.

With an audience that only has an attention span of 5-6 seconds, you need to create a lasting first impression that easily gets the main points across. This should be done with short, powerful sections of content and applicable photographs/icons that are sectioned off by clear and concise headers.

Website design is the foundation of user experience and needs constant attention and improvement. Are you looking to revamp your website? Or, need help in deloping your website from scratch? Talk to our experts now!

Categories
Brand & Identity Design Technology Web Design

When And How To Redesign Your Website?

Redesign Your Website

Design trends change at a fast pace, and you need to keep yourself abreast of the changing trends. A timely analysis of your website design will help you in taking the call if you need to redesign your website or not. If your design looks straight out of the ’90s, with functionality from the stone age, its time to redesign.

But the big question is – how to get started and from where? Therefore, we created a website redesign checklist to help you through the redesigning process.

First things first, put your website under a design microscope and analyze if it’s time for a change. When was the last time you changed your web design? With the internet evolving all the time, it’s challenging to keep your website modern without updating it regularly. If you can’t easily remember the last time your website had a makeover, it’s time to take a look at our website redesign checklist.

Is your website mobile-friendly?

Mobile-friendly websites mean offering a consistent experience for visitors across all devices and screen resolutions; whether they access your site via desktops, tablets, or mobile devices.

Everyone has a mobile these days, even the kids. Mobile searches are higher than ever. A study revealed that in 2018, 52 percent of website traffic came from mobile phones. It means that more visitors come to your website via a mobile device, rather than on a desktop. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on a substantial amount of leads and revenue.

Not to forget, in November 2016, Google rolled out its mobile-first index, which changed the Google ranking system altogether. Google now primarily looks at the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking. 

Read More About Mobile Indexing Here

Is your website not driving revenue?

The core objective of a business is to generate revenue. Your website should be a lead-driving, and revenue-increasing machine. If that’s not happening, you likely need a website redesign. Well, one may argue that low revenue can be because of many reasons, but lack of website traffic and leads is a significant cause. And, even if your website design isn’t the main cause of your low leads and traffic, it won’t hurt upgrading the design.

Has Your business changed?

Your website should be an accurate representation of your business. If you have changed your business or modified some part of it, then redesigning is a good option. If you offer new products, or you’ve changed locations, or changed your branding, your website should reflect that.

Read More About Startup Business Branding Here

Now, if you decide to redesign your website, you need to follow the below-mentioned process:

1. List down what’s wrong with your site

It is the foundation of the redesigning process. You’ll want to make a list of everything that you feel is wrong with the current version of your website. The list should be comprehensive, covering everything from the design to the verbiage, and everything else. This step will not only help you in uncovering all the design shortcomings, but it can also help you discover other site performance issues. 

For example, you may find that your page upload speed is sluggish. This may not be a design issue, but it’s a problem nonetheless, which could repel visitors from your website.

2. Create a plan

Once you have made a list of all the aesthetic design issues, you need to come up with a game plan. Brainstorm some aesthetic elements that you’d like to implement instead of the present ones. Like, if you have listed that the color of your text doesn’t stand out against the background, write a suggestion against it of how you might want to fix it.

Or maybe you’ve decided that your navigation bar is overcrowded with too many components. You could make a note suggesting streamlining the navigation.

3. Take services of a web design agency

Not everyone is proficient in web designing, or has web designers on board. If you have experience with web designing, nothing like it; however, if you don’t have the resources and knowledge, it’s best to take the professional services of a reputable design agency. 

Not only will they create a stunning website for you, but they can elevate the user experience of your website to the next level. Not only they will do a great job, but they will also do it much more quickly than a fairly new and inexperienced team.

When you’re looking for a website agency to redesign your website, find one that has been in the business for a decent amount of time. Review their portfolio and list of clients to get an idea about their work. A couple of meetings can set the right expectations, and will help the design house to offer a custom quotation to you, based on the requirements.

4. Communicate your brand, goals, and taste to the design team

If you don’t communicate your brand, your thinking and what you wish to achieve, you will never reach your dream design. Sit down and talk to your website designer about the lists you’ve made and let them know how you’d like to go ahead with the changes to better fit your style.

Web designers have tons of ideas floating in their head; keep an open mind and explore all possible options, tailored for you. After all, they are experts. Ensure that you share your current style guides with them. This will help them to implement your existing color scheme, fonts, and styles in the new design.

5. Provide feedback to the designer

Your website designer will likely start with a wireframe or a watered-down version of your website. This is the best time to be open with them about what you like and what you don’t like about their design. It will help them to come up with a perfect design in the least number of iterations.

6. Conduct user testing

After users have had a chance to use your website, it’s time to do some user testing. This can help you understand user behavior on your site so that you can determine what users’ perception of your website. 

Conduct click analysis to understand which buttons are getting the maximum number of clicks, and which are the ones hardly getting any traction. The color or verbiage on the button can be the problem. User testing can help you determine the small details that can make or break your design in the eyes of your audience.

7. Ready, set and go

After the user testing is completed, you’re all set to fly high with your revamped design. Continue the analytics for the initial phase to determine the success of your redesigning exercises. Minor adjustments can be made based on these observations.

Need help redesigning your website? Talk to us.

Categories
Design

Evolution Of UX Design Principles Over The Years

UX Design Principles

Since the early 70s, designers and developers are working hand in hand to make screen-based user interfaces. At that time, actual user experience(UX Design) was least recognized and making everything work with a limited amount of processing power and a monochromatic screen was the sole goal. Slowly and gradually the hardware evolved which led to the growth of design possibilities.

Whether its a simple text on a screen or a fully-functional Graphical User Interface (GUI), its the UX designer who helps people to understand and draw sense from the technology. The early period of computing restricted the learning process to how to use windows, tabs and icons. While in the contemporary era, learning focuses more on making the most out of a tiny screen and touch gestures.

The iPhone Revolution

It all began with the iPhone which started a revolution and changed the principles of UX design. It was the iPhone which shifted our focus towards user experience and made it one of the most critical elements of any design. The use of button-free gesture control is iPhone’s best-known innovation and is the biggest contributor to its success.

iPhone Revolution

With the iPhone, users could control everything from the screen and there were no buttons like the other smartphones of that age. The iPhone looked clean, elegant and consistent. It completely transformed the use of smartphones. This design innovation made a smartphone more of a fully-functional computer. Although iPhone was not a leader in camera quality, memory, connection speed etc., it sure was a fully capable computer operating system.

Parallelly, UX design also evolved owing to faster processors and extended memory and in conjunction with that the iPhone suddenly opened up thousands of new possibilities for designers.

Responsive Design

Designing was much simpler when you knew that most of your users were accessing your interface on a desktop computer. That was changed with the growth of smaller screens like a laptop, a tablet or a smartphone. A UX designer had to make sure that the interface looks good across every platform. Responsive design has changed the way companies think about UX design. A Responsive Design enables the different elements to act according to the size and configuration of the device.

Responsive Design

A menu can widen out across the desktop screen, giving users more choice, then shrink to essential navigation elements on a smartphone. Moreover, it has driven us towards a unification of user experience across devices and modes. Companies take extra efforts to ensure that their browser-based UX has the exact same workflow and feel as their app does. With a change in how people access the web now, mobile-first has dominated both web design and software development.

Data-Based Design

The design revolution posed new challenges which weren’t on the surface previously. Designers required to make complex user interactions clear and intuitive on both smaller and bigger screens. A list of tasks which previously required a 17-inch screen, keyboard and mouse must now be accessible with a 4-inch screen and a thumb. User demands were increasing day by day and designer had to live up to the expectations. This pushed the companies towards data-based design which involved user testing to get everything right.

It became common for companies to implement user testing in order to address issues like flow, accessibility and user design preferences. User testing allows a trial of multiple versions simultaneously, get user feedback and suggestions, make changes and retest without actually programming and reprogramming the app.

Data-Based Design

Not every company implies UX design testing in the best ways and can draw false conclusions or data. For example, many companies don’t really watch users while interacting with the software, so all they get is self-reported data. Another good example – users may be testing the app prototype sitting down at a desk, but in real time they are likely to use the actual finished app while walking around. This can lead to developers thinking their UX design principles are sound when they actually are flawed. Moreover, untrained testers can draw wrong conclusions from user data.

For UX designers it’s important to learn how to effectively integrate testing and other data sources into design decisions. Usability testing has already driven a refinement in UX design principles. Companies like Apple or Google carry out lots of testing and use their findings to create their own style guides, both for in-house work and apps carried in their store.

The pace of design evolution has been on an increase since past few decades and it wouldn’t be a surprise if the design principles which are trending today completely fade out in a few decades. It’s important for a designer to understand the changes in user experience fundamentals and incorporate it in the design. Talk to our design gurus for more insight.