Starting on a Web Design Project
Starting on a web design project can be intimidating. There are a lot of balls to juggle, keywords, design, target market, value, colours and optimisation. And of course, all the components above need to plan out in advance.
In other words, there’s a lot that needs your attention. I’m not telling you this to frighten you, but to let you understand how important it is to be prepared, and always to have your game plan ready. To help, we’re looking at 10 web design suggestions that you must to keep in mind when creating a website. This goes for all kinds of websites whether a business is selling to a customer via e-commerce stores, small company websites and product sites.
1. Your Expectations
A website project cannot thrive until you have determined what “success” truly implies. Depending on how experienced you are with the plan of owning a website, you may or may not be capable of explaining what you genuinely need.
This can be problematic later down the road. Nothing stops a project dead in its tracks than a client realising mid-project that, “this is not what I wanted!” This is why it’s especially significant for the design team at Froogle to set the expectations when we first interact with you the customer. Typically these are 5 questions we ask:
- What’s the advantage of this website for you and your business?
- What do you want the website to accomplish?
- How do you want to measure the website’s achievement?
- Is the website an indispensable part of your business? Or is the site a home to produce information on the company, an expansion of the brand (microsite), or a side project?
- Who is the target audience? Once we have the results, we prepare a document that will “explain” to the potential client a proposed solution. If all has been discovered correctly, we have restricted the number of surprises that can pop up later on.
2. Define the Goal
This one is in association with the earlier point. Naturally, a website without a clear, goal has little likelihood of being successful. The purpose is something that you and your customer should determine together. The goal needs to be unquestionably established, measurable and achievable.
Option: A good goal for a site should be these three things:
Purpose = “it needs to produce sales.”
Measurable = “it needs to bring in X in traffic a month.”
Achievable = “it needs to bring in Y sales a month.”
3. Think Traffic First, and Solve a Particular Problem
Goals are what your our clients would like to accomplish with there website. Solving problems is something that the website produces for its audience. “Let the customer know what’s in it for them.”
4. Always put Content First
No amount of visual appeal can displace excellent content performance. Content as always is king. You should continually be thinking of content because content encourages engagement, and engagement drives action.
As a website design company, the worst thing we can do is put beauty above function. We always begin with the keywords that our customer would like to showcase on the website, and after that has been accomplished, we think how design can improve the visitability of the content and make sure it resonates with our agreed upon target audience.
5. Consider your Website Standards
Standards are high. Learn to cherish them. One of the main reasons that standards are high is people – your customers have gotten used to them. Don’t make your customers learn a new design language to navigate the website.
Make it easy for your users by implementing web standards that they’ve previously come to appreciate. Every e-commerce website puts the shopping cart in the top right corner. We don’t do that because it’s attractive. We do it because customers expect to find the shopping cart there. Just a few to keep in mind, Logo top left, navigation simple, sign up in the footer, search feature in the header and contact/social media top right.
Embrace the traditional web standards.
6. Keep the Navigation Simple
If somebody can’t navigate from location A to location B quickly, then the website won’t be able to reach its goal. Consequently, the navigation design needs only the minimum amount of information required to get the user from A to B quickly.
Start by planning out the most significant steps on the user’s journey through the website design. Ensure that your navigation encourages them with that journey rather than making things more complicated. Think of how you can improve the user’s journey, rather than making them see everything your way. Use website navigation best practices and remember basic models of mobile navigation for an optimised user participation.
7. Concentrate on Mobile
Mobile is here! – From surfing the web and viewing media to interacting on social media and shopping. Now, more than ever, people go online on mobile than on desktop.
For this very reason, you definitely have to ensure that your website layout is mobile optimised, meaning that all pages are fully operational on mobile. “Fully operational”, suggests that all the features, including the shopping cart, need to run effortlessly for great user participation.
8. Don’t FORGET Typography
When working on the visual phase of your project, it’s easy to forget about typography … just combining some fonts to “complete” the website design. Please don’t. Web designs rely massively on typography, making typography, not just a design factor but a design tool in and of itself. It plays a part in the overall appearance and feel of the entire page, and it must operate well on both a desktop and mobile.
9. Deliver in Stages
Designing in isolation is never a good idea. Creating something behind closed doors and then revealing it to your customer after 8 weeks will rarely produce beneficial results. The customer must be involved in stages.
Dividing the project into two or three main stages, depending on the complexity of the design, and make sure to deliver those stages according to the set agenda. Every time make sure you get feedback from the client and arrange the rest of the process respectively.
10. Welcome Social Media
As mobile, social media is an ever-present factor in the current web scene. Please do not overlook it. Like it or not, or more accurately, whether your customer needs it or not, social media is where people are, and they will definitely be spending way more time on social media than on your client’s website. So, use this to your benefit.
It’s been stated that about two billion people hit Facebook each month. For that purpose, you certainly have to build social media into your client’s website. With this, you are making it more likely for customers to share the client’s content or goods and therefore encouraging others to find it by pointing traffic to the website.
What’s Next?
While we’ve only scraped the surface of what it takes to create a successful website, hopefully, if you follow the advice above, it will help you to get you started on your next project.
