When it comes to Web Design in Huddersfield – Mello Agency suggests these tips:
Have a strong, clear brand message
When it comes to web design, you have control in what is presented on the computer screen. Your website should display the image you want the world to see. Positioning is key! Our eyes are naturally drawn to the top left-hand corner, so it’s important to have the physical design such as the logo and key message in the correct position.
Provide a clear, concise navigation method
A good web designer will ensure that they use design techniques to lead the user around the screen and site. Good use of location, colour, contrast and size can help focus the eye. Visibly differentiated sub-sections and even a site map can ensure a concise, easy to follow navigation route. Throughout the site, consistency is extremely important. Branch to one key navigation menu, sub-navigations and keep it uncluttered by avoiding drop-down menus.
Make it intuitively easy to use
Keeping visitors entertained can be difficult as they can be indecisive if the site is hard or slow to navigate. Ensure navigation buttons are obvious and easily identifiable. The top of the page is a good position and having appropriate links directly from page to page enables users to quickly switch when something catches their interest. Lastly, adhere to the functionalities people have come to expect. For instance, if the text is emphasised your user will naturally expect it to be a link.
Keep it consistent
Users like to know where they are within a website and if the style of the page changes intensely or somehow feels different visitors will become disengaged and can start to feel lost. Maintain consistency and a professional image, by ensuring everything matches, from heading sizes and typefaces to design, colour and style of image.
Keep it simple
Useful information should be easily accessible. Surfers will not stick around to make sure the page is scannable. Theories suggest our eyes will take in more information and then zoom in to an area of interest from the bigger image.
Ensure it’s easy to understand
Every aspect of your website needs to be easy to understand as visitors want to spend a lot of time browsing. It’s important to consider short sentences, larger font, segments divided by contrast and colour, and white space.
There are rules to consider such as never use more than three different point sizes for a font and keep lines of text to 18 words – 50-80 characters – max!
Degrade gracefully
Having a simple code without compromising on the elements you need is extremely important as not everyone has the latest PC and fastest broadband. HTML code needs to degrade gracefully and not slow down or cause complications to lower spec computers. If an IT issue occurs, customers will not return or be recommending your site and services to anyone else!
Write it with your target audience in mind
The target audience needs to be considered when writing or commissioning the copy to your website. It’s hard to obtain and avoiding bombarding users with all the information you can, keep it succinct in style and use laymen’s terms if appropriate. It’s important to consider the keywords people will use in their searches when trying to attract visitors through the search engine optimisation.
Consider usability
The user’s experience is just as important as the first impression. When designing a website, consider the things a user will want to use your site for and check that these are easy to achieve and if necessary are readily available from the homepage such as important information, current offers and appointment bookings.
To check your site is user-friendly, test, test and test again! Also, test it out on people who know nothing about your business.
Make sure it’s compliant
A worthy website should follow certain guidelines. For instance, all websites calculated by Alchemy Interactive, a London based web design agency, comply with the Web Accessibility Initiative. This confirms their sites are appropriate ad accessible for people with disabilities and over aspects of web design such as screen flickering – line with the Disability Discrimination Act.
