Why is Having Quality Web Design Important?

The web is constantly evolving, it’s functions and limitations are stretching beyond what anyone could have imagined when it was first released to the public in the early 90’s. Thankfully, web design has evolved as well. If it hadn’t, I might still have sleepless nights about the nightmarish dancing baby and flashing buttons that did nothing but risk a user having a seizure.

What is Web Design?

At Lightpost Creative we like to think of web design as a creative solution to a series of problems. These problems include delivering content in a logical fashion, creating a memorable experience, instilling trust and targeting the correct audience. Designing with these ideas in mind can help produce a better product or service for customers.

Delivering Content

While deciding where to put content in a design, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, remember that users on the web don’t read, they scan. The way most people scan across the page is in an F or E pattern, with this idea you will be able to decide where to put your logo, headlines and even advertisements. More info on the way websites are read here. It is also important as a designer to keep SEO in mind when structuring the page. There is a great post about this by Nick La over at Web Designer Wall called SEO Guide for Designers.

Creating a Memorable Experience

A unique design can help set apart your website from the rest. Everyday I visit dozens of websites with quality articles, most of them are about the web. To be honest, I forget most of them in a week. Having a good design can be one of the determining factors whether I remember it or not. Take for instance Freelance Switch, not every article on that site is useful to me, but when I first saw it I could tell that whoever these people are, they know what they’re doing. The content is laid out in the F pattern that web users tend to scan, headings on the top left, content below and the sidebar is on the right side. Their designer deserves a new red bicycle.

Instilling Trust Through Quality Design

Most web users know if they are going to find what they need on a site or not within the first 15 seconds. That isn’t a long time even in dog years. So having a striking design can be a great way to keep them after 15 seconds because they can see that you have a professional look and feel to your site. I got an email from a site called Xtreme Supplements. My first thought when I came to this site was, SKETCHY. It looks like it was made in the 90’s but forgot the blinking seizure buttons. The prices are cheap but make me feel like I can’t trust them because of their poor appearance. The last thing you want is protein powder that was made in a bathtub by a guy that looks like this. No offense if Ted Nugent happens to be into web design and is reading this. Another site is http://www.vitacost.com/, sure, it’s not great, but compared to the last site it looks like gold. Not only does it have a professional design, there is a lot of information throughout the site that shows the company knows what they are talking about.

Targeting the Correct Audience

Knowing your audience is important, once you accomplish this defining your sites design and marketing strategy becomes much more effective. Not only can you tell how they are finding your site, but also how they navigate it and what kind of designs they prefer. For instance if you were making a site about UFC Fight Results, you would want it to be appealing to a target audience that is UFC fans, which I think works for it. On the other hand, a similar site focused on Weekly MMA News and Videos is using the default WordPress theme which fits the target audience as much as a perm on the Pope.

Why Should the Design Matter to a Client?

Some clients like to try and use free web design templates to achieve their goal of a quick website. This can get your site online quickly, but with poor quality. The build is usually not optimized for load time and saving bandwidth, and definitely not optimized for SEO. Another thing a client loses with a template is branding, its possible to add your logo in sometimes, but does not give them the full customization needed to create recognizable branding for themselves. A successful website should contain:

• Well organized and easy to navigate
• Visually appealing
• Quality content and design that conveys a company’s message
• Should encourage customers to engage with the company

Having a quality web design is important to a companies success. It can be the difference between earning a returning customer or being a needle in a hundred million website haystack.