What is Good Design?

As a website design agency we are continually asked about good web design. Website Design and development is important, but unfortunately many firms loose track of what matters. In a world where employees and customers are pressed for time, what matters is two fold. First, your website needs to be found. You can win every design award in the country, but if you site is not easily found then it doesn’t exist. A good web design should contain the following.

1. A clean and simple home page. Think of Shaker furniture. It is highly sought after because making something simple, functional and beautiful is hard work. Making a home page that includes these same criteria requires a clear understanding of a customers business. Your messaging needs to be clean, concise and easy to understand both visually and textually.

2. A Navigation scheme that makes sense. Quirky navigation schemes might seem cool and innovative but in study after study what we have found is that they only contribute to high bounce rates. Customers that can’t find what they want will quickly leave your site and go to other competitors. Navigation should follow a pattern that people are used to. Don’t adopt a navigation structure that is unique and no one has seen before.

3. Connected Design. The Interior pages should have a design scheme that follows that of the home page. People want to feel connected to the rest of the site so don’t make the interior pages disconnected from the rest of the site.

4. Make it easy to contact you. Every site should have a main phone number and contact page that is easy to find.

5. Keep you site fresh. Content is king and to what extent you can keep your content up to date, the more your customers will be engaged with you. In addition this fresh content will help your organic SEO.