Good design is not about the designer’s preferences. It’s common to see people say either a website is ‘pretty’ or ‘ugly,’ and thus the rest is subjective. However, what makes the majority of the difference between a working business website and one that erodes the success of a business is neither fashion nor a preference. It’s whether the website’s information is structured in a way that helps the users find what they came for, whether the visitors believe what they see and prompt action, and whether the site actually functions when real customers, and not just the creators, start utilising it.
We have constructed this section to present our thoughts on the topic prior to addressing how much a web design costs and which platform we will use to build it. These questions are addressed separately since we believe they are equally important, and should not be answered in brevity. This page is about what lies beneath these two equally important decisions: the functions that a website should have for a business, and what happens when design is employed merely as decoration.
Design is a business decision, not a finishing touch
Designers as first contact people
A designer is usually the first person a potential customer interacts with. Before someone calls you, before they show up to your store, before they seek out a mutual friend and ask about you, they check you out online and form an opinion. The opinion your site forms is often formed in less than a second, and is rarely a conscious process. People don’t think to themselves “this site has a confusing navigation,” before they leave, they just leave.
That is why “good design” includes more than a nice color scheme and font. It means if someone lands on your page, they can tell your purpose, audience, and what they need to do within a few seconds. It means reducing the barriers that exist on the path from your landing page to a query, booking, or purchase. It means your website functions on a phone. In most cases, visitors arrive to a site via their phone, not a desktop. None of these elements is decoration. It means the difference between a customer and a bounce statistic in your analytics that you will never explain.
Usability is where most sites quietly lose money
Visitors leaving without getting in touch is a slow, invisible leak. Problems related to usability often go undiagnosed and unnoticed because they don’t generate complaints. A contact form with an extra field. A phone number hidden in a footer. A menu that makes sense to the designer, but not to the visitor. These all lead to visitors leaving the site without contacting you.
Optimistic design questions at the end of the design process if each page would work as a starting page in the absence of prior knowledge. If the answer is no, then that is a design failure.
Accessing websites should not be a hyperlink away fromaccessibility, and it’s more than just staying on the right side of the law.
For starters, being accessible has everything to do with mitigating risks. First, there’s an understanding that not abiding by the Equality Act 2010 (for example) places a business in the United Kingdom in an inequitable position and anti-trade practices. This effects the business when the owner of a website ignores rules regarding websites that touch upon the needs of persons with disabilities. This legal gray area isn’t unheard of. At best, it’s a letter from a law firm. At worst, it’s bad press on top of legal fees.
More important on a daily basis, good design for all involves accessible design. This overarching design is geared toward all users, whether disabled or not. There are benefits for all. Reading text with good contrast, and a manageable heading structure, improves efficiency for everyone, even who are viewing content on-the-go. Keyboards and screen readers go hand in hand. Inaccessible websites hurt users and potential customers. It’s a guarantee your users will be widest group of people, as the needs of persons with disabilities are not the only needs affected.
Conversion really matters.
Visual appeal is great and all, but a website needs to do its job and convert. This job is getting visitors to contact you for an inquiry, book an appointment, or purchase your product/service. Conversion-centered design Educates the designer about what the designer is trying to accomplish on every single page of the website, and getting rid of anything that distracts the page. A conversion centered page does not contain its calls to action at the very end in a “book now” or “contact us” button. Trust signals, reviews, ratings, next steps, pricing, or anything that convinces a customer to continue to the next step should be placed in front of them and not hidden.
A lot of beautiful agency portfolio websites lose to their plainer competitors. A pretty homepage that makes readers scroll through 4 pictures and 3 screens before telling them what the business does/offers or how to contact them is made for the agency and not for the client.
Practice
All of this is about intention. Each decision should be rational. Every page should require optimal decision making for the user’s needs. Every friction removed. Every page should be designed to be optimal for a visitor no matter how they access the site. Decisions like size, platform, and budget become easy after design is complete.
Knowing what your site needs to fulfill is important. The next most important questions are usually centered around budget and cost. In our guide to budgeting and pricing for a website, we describe what factors are important to consider when thinking about the price of a small business site. We dispel a lot of myths surrounding the cost of website development. We explain the main trade-offs of each commonly used website platform (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, etc) and where your business lies.