Introduction
What can sometimes be perplexing to some people is when their web design agency starts to talk about technical jargon such as mentioning “JavaScript” and “PHP” and also designing an “AMP” version of the website.
To somebody who’s never had a website designed, well all this technical language can get confusing, so much so that you may be reaching for the aspirin during your meeting with the web designers.
But do not worry; we are committed to simplifying the web design process at this agency. We’ve dedicated a whole article to explaining the main differences between web design and web development because these terms differ in terms of what they mean when designing a new website for your business.
Web design concentrates on the aesthetics and the U.X, which is short for “user experience”.
Web design, the aspect most customers understand, and something they often type on Google when they want to obtain a new company website.
Web design is primarily about the aesthetics and the UX. However, its not just about how the website looks but also about how users can interact with it- this is what web designers call the U.X, and this needs to be carefully considered, in order to lower the businesses bounce rate and improve the organic search engine optimisation.
A well-designed website should look stunning and prioritises user experience (U.X), making it easy to navigate.
This unwavering focus on user experience ensures that your customers will interact positively with your website, what we mean by that is the dwell time should be higher, the bounce lower, helping to improve the companies organic search engine optimisation.
So, to give you an example of what we are talking about, we are web designers based in the heart of Cardiff’s city centre, and even though we’ve designed plenty of WordPress websites for various customers, we still encounter websites that are sometimes confusing and difficult to use.
For example, from recollection, we can remember a rather minimalistic website with a main menu designed to be in the top right-hand corner, which you needed to click on it, to expand the main menu, the “burger menu”- well it was very hard to find.
And this had thinking, surely this must be increasing the companies bounce rate.
So, web design is a balance by looking brilliant and also being functional.
Web design, therefore, concentrates on the layout of the page and the design
Therefore, web design considers different aspects, such as how the header section will look, how the footer will look, how wide it is, where the main menu is located, and where the content marketing should be placed.
Colour scheme (hex codes)
Web designers need to carefully consider the colour scheme (which hex codes they will use) so that it replicates the brand guidelines.
If you haven’t got brand guideline, lets say because you are a start-up business, you should carefully consider the colour scheme because it can have a dramatic effect on the look and the feel of the website; if for example you want to go after the premium end of the market, or if you want a different appearance, such being a low cost company, then often different colour scheme are used.
For example, we were recently shopping for kitchen sinks. Some retailers crowd the page with special offers, bright colours so you remember the brand.
On the other end, if you are looking for a high-end copper, hand-beaten sink, the website is often more minimalist, more luxurious colours, such as gold, black and white are often used, to show it’s an expensive premium product.
The typography is entirely different on a premium, expensive website, and often the pages are less cluttered is more about concentrating on show casing high-quality product that justifies sink being let’s say thousand pounds a sink! Wow.
You want to create a positive user experience
Whether your walking into a gym, a hotel, or a fancy restaurant, a friendly, smiling face greeting you changes the whole atmosphere.
You should keep this in mind when designing your website.
Obviously a shopper doesn’t want to be greeted by a vast smiling face whenever looking to buy a product online.
What they do want instead, often is a simple website; a website thats gets them to the product or service that they wish with a minimal amount of effort; they don’t want to be greeted with main menu, that’s overly cluttered, and full of so many products, that the shopper doesn’t find what they want, which will increase the bounce rate.
Creating a good user experience should be like a helping hand, helping the shopper throughout the buying journey, offering advice about the product and assisting in terms of offering good customer service via web chat and phone numbers or offering a contact forms for them to fill out; and they should all be a breeze to use.
Responsive
We live busy lives, so many people are strapped for time when buying items and services. Therefore, many people are purchasing items on the move, on the bus, on the train, or on the subway.
Your website should work on smartphones and tablets and be tested extensively to ensure it works perfectly.
We recently watched a program where a famous car brand sculpted a prototype car out of solid clay.
This is similar to when your web developers wire-frame a website. It’s not the finished product, and is not usable until the web design is complete.
However the wireframing and the web developers allow for an outline sketch of the website to be created, to understand where the different elements can go, for example, where the main menu goes, and whether text can be laid out on the page.
Bring your vision to life without the complication
Some web designers spend forever and a day creating a website; however, we have been designing content management systems for over ten years. So, we have got down to fine art by liaising with the customer to understand what they want quickly; we can then build quality websites for them in a short period of time, often in less than a month from start to finish.
We are the company to call, if you’re looking for highly talented web designers in Cardiff. We have over ten years of experience helping businesses to improve their organic SEO and obtain high-quality websites. Starting at just £950, we are the company to call.