How to Tell If Your Website is Designed Well
Considering that so many of us spend several hours online each day, it makes sense that we experience a lot of different websites on a regular basis. This kind of experience means that we can intuitively know if a new site is “good” or “bad,” but how can we quantify it? If you are building a website, then it’s imperative that you know what your users want and how you can deliver on their expectations. So, with that in mind, let’s go over some essential tips to follow to make sure that your website is well designed.
Usability Trumps Aesthetics
Sure, if everything is equal, people will prefer to visit a site that looks nicer and more professional than one that doesn’t. However, if your pages look amazing but have broken buttons or a layout that makes no sense, your users will bounce faster than you can blink.
You want to make pertinent information readily available and allow your visitors to find what they need immediately. Unfortunately, web users are kind of sporadic in how they work with websites, so there are some critical factors to remember.
Keep It Simple
If there is too much information on a page, then it can become overwhelming, and it will be hard to connect with your audience. Instead, try to minimize the amount of text, images, and graphics that are present so that there is a better flow. Even if that means making your pages longer, that’s preferable to trying to stuff everything on top.
The other benefit of maintaining a simplistic design is that it will help reduce the bandwidth needed to display your pages, thus making it faster for them to load. Milliseconds count when visiting a new site, so try to trim as much fat as possible.
Adjust to Screen Size
More users are looking at sites on mobile devices, so you should have your material optimized for each kind of screen. If not, then they will have a harder time navigating your page from their phone or tablet, which could lead them to a competitor.
Give Them a Purpose
You don’t want people meandering through your pages trying to find what they want, so make it easy and bring it to them. Calls to action are a fantastic way to ensure that they pay attention to the material you want them to, and it will make them feel like they are more in control of their site experience.
Bottom Line
Overall, if you want to see how well designed your site is, make it as easy to use as possible. Use analytics to determine things like bounce rate, hotspots, and responsiveness so that you can see what is working and what isn’t. If there are parts of your site that no one visits, then remove them entirely. In the end, a well-designed site is one that has no unnecessary components.
Usability Trumps Aesthetics
Sure, if everything is equal, people will prefer to visit a site that looks nicer and more professional than one that doesn’t. However, if your pages look amazing but have broken buttons or a layout that makes no sense, your users will bounce faster than you can blink.
You want to make pertinent information readily available and allow your visitors to find what they need immediately. Unfortunately, web users are kind of sporadic in how they work with websites, so there are some critical factors to remember.
- Make Your Content Easy to Scan: for the most part, people don’t stop and read a new page until they’ve determined that it has information valuable to them. As such, you want to highlight important things and make it easier for people to locate buttons and links that they want. Overall, don’t expect them to read everything you put on the page.
- Don’t Make Them Scroll: obviously, this will depend on the kind of content you have, but most of the time users will just scan the first half of the page before going elsewhere. Thus, keep everything necessary on top.
- Use Standard Formatting: there are certain things that users expect from a page. For example, clicking on the logo should take them to the home page, and there should be page links on the bottom for reference. Keep your layout simple and easy to navigate and don’t make any significant changes. This will only confuse your visitors.
Keep It Simple
If there is too much information on a page, then it can become overwhelming, and it will be hard to connect with your audience. Instead, try to minimize the amount of text, images, and graphics that are present so that there is a better flow. Even if that means making your pages longer, that’s preferable to trying to stuff everything on top.
The other benefit of maintaining a simplistic design is that it will help reduce the bandwidth needed to display your pages, thus making it faster for them to load. Milliseconds count when visiting a new site, so try to trim as much fat as possible.
Adjust to Screen Size
More users are looking at sites on mobile devices, so you should have your material optimized for each kind of screen. If not, then they will have a harder time navigating your page from their phone or tablet, which could lead them to a competitor.
Give Them a Purpose
You don’t want people meandering through your pages trying to find what they want, so make it easy and bring it to them. Calls to action are a fantastic way to ensure that they pay attention to the material you want them to, and it will make them feel like they are more in control of their site experience.
Bottom Line
Overall, if you want to see how well designed your site is, make it as easy to use as possible. Use analytics to determine things like bounce rate, hotspots, and responsiveness so that you can see what is working and what isn’t. If there are parts of your site that no one visits, then remove them entirely. In the end, a well-designed site is one that has no unnecessary components.