Indianapolis Web Design, SEO & Search Marketing Companies

Differentiating Good Web Design From Bad Web Design

Sometimes, the only way to learn how to do something is to study how NOT to do it. That’s a great approach to learning the best practices for web site design. Often you can learn more from a really bad web page than you can from the good ones. The good ones work so well, you’re not often even conscious of why. However, a really bad page can damage your entire view of a company or organization.

So what are the ways that organizations go awry when building their online presence? A very common mistake is to talk to everyone one in the company and find out what they want on the website. There might be meetings or questionnaires to fill out as the input of a variety of people is sought. You might be thinking that this sounds like a good idea, but it’s not. Why? It’s because, most companies forget to ask the most important people for input –their customers. When you don’t poll the people who are most likely to visit your site, you inevitably focus on your company’s needs instead of your customers’ needs.

This often leads to two common mistakes: telling me how great you are, but not how you’re going to solve my problems or creating a website that is confusing to me the visitor. This results in pages that are filled with lots of internal jargon that the visitor can’t understand or pages that focus on subjects that are only marginally relevant to the customer.

Remember, the average visitor will leave if he or she can’t figure your site out in four seconds or less. They must be able to quickly scan it and know what you do, why it matters to them, and how you can solve their problem.

Another category where designers often go astray is the use or misuse of design elements. A good example is that of the navigation bar. Resist the temptation to seem clever by putting it in a strange place or force visitors to interact with it in an unusual way. Remember, the clock is ticking and you only have four seconds to grab them.

Resist the urge to build in pop-up windows. They annoy visitors and can easily be blocked by most updated browsers. Thus, they may never be seen and are a waste of design time.

Sometimes, an organization is tempted to put a lot of bells and whistles on their page with Flash or JavaScript. Unless these are critical to your message, keep your page simple by leaving them out. At the very least, test your site in a variety of browsers and on a variety of computers (including older models) to see what your site looks like when these tools are disabled or not functioning properly.

Do you need to capture information from a visitor? Don’t require them to sign up before entering your site. They won’t! Instead, if you must capture information such as their email for your newsletter, put a “sign up” button in the upper right area of your page. Use a bright color like red and offer some value for their information like a coupon or a free download.

Some other common mistakes to avoid include adding anything that blinks, not verifying that your links work, and under construction signs. If you have a page on your site that is under construction, take it down. It doesn’t belong there until it is finished. Avoid using text that is too small and background colors that are distracting or make the text difficult to read.

Finally, remember to keep it simple. Answer the question: What is the most important thing I want a visitor to do on my site. Then make it easy to find and understand that one thing. By avoiding the bad examples above and focusing on the most important thing, your web site design will accomplish the goals of your organization.