There was a time when building a website was a very challenging as well as expensive task. But the situation is no longer the same; creating websites is easier and faster. Moreover, designing websites has become more pocket-friendly thanks to many open-source and free tools available in the market.
As digitalization is at its zenith and has successfully reached every nook and cranny of the world, the demand for information and services that can be accessed online has been increasing. Based on reports, there are more than 1.95 billion websites worldwide. Additionally, approximately 550K websites are created daily which has led to a meteoric rise in the availability of web designing services and professionals.
A web design that stands out and is user-friendly always attracts loads of traffic and traffic. This post will discuss some of the best and most effective web design tips to help you create exceptional websites.
Effective Web Design Tips for Building Excellent Websites
#1 Keep it simple
Simplicity is always considered the best feature. The same principle works for web design; too much information, features, images, functionalities, etc., on a page ends up making it more complicated. Hence, the most essential and primary web-design tip is to create a simple website with only features sufficient for the users to get what they want from the website effortlessly.
#2 Easily navigable structure
A website must deliver what the user needs efficiently without burdening the user to find the way to get the results on his own from your website. Hence your website should be easily navigable for the users to ensure they don’t leave the site. First, the web design must have a navigation bar consisting of tabs that link to some of the most important sections of the website. The designer must ensure that this bar is placed where it’s effortless to find.
The same thing goes for the search bar. The search bar is one of the most used tools by users on any website. Hence, whether you place it in the navigation bar or any other place, be sure to place it where users can spot it easily. According to Hubspot, around 38% of first-time visitors look at a website’s page layout or navigational links. If the navigation bar is hard to locate, the chances are that they will leave the website.
#3 Keep the web design consistent
Consistency is also one of the parameters that play a decisive role in determining the user-friendliness of your website. Web designers must ensure that page layout is consistent throughout all the pages of their website.
You can play with the background color, font style, and other elements, but the page layout should be the same. For example, in the help, feedback, or comments section, navigational links must be placed in the same positions so that the user doesn’t have to search for these elements on every page.
#4 Add audio files to your website to make it accessible for all
To make your website user-friendly, it needs to be accessible to all people, including the perfectly abled and those with visual impairments. For this, it’s a best practice to add audio files wherever possible on your website. Such as in the navigation menu, tutorial column, service pages, and your website’s blogs. This will make your website suitable for all, thus bringing in more traffic from the least expected audience.
#5 Responsive web design
Simply put, responsive web design refers to a structure or layout of a website that appears and feels the same on every kind of device, be it computers, tablets, or smartphones. Whether the user is accessing the website from a smartphone or a computer, it should function the same.
In non-responsive web designs, the website appears different on different devices. It happens mostly on smartphones because of screen size limitations; some parts of the website do not appear, thus limiting its functionalities. Non-responsive web designs are one of the biggest reasons users leave a website; according to Hubspot, around 73.1% of designers claimed that non-responsive design is a crucial reason behind visitors leaving a website.
Therefore, it’s advisable for the developers to create a responsive web design to get better results from their websites.
#6 Add visual elements to make the web design more interactive
Another web-designing tip that can make visitors stick to the website is making it more interactive by adding animation, videos, and images. You can add animation wherever suitable, such as to your homepage and website’s contents, to make it look more exciting. Add images such as infographics, graphs, video tutorials, and informational videos on your website to help users quickly understand the content of your website.
#7 Less clicking, more content
For a website to be user-friendly, it needs to provide users with what they need in very little time and without hassle. Having to click too many times to derive the appropriate information and results from a website is very annoying. And it may push the user to jump to another website to meet their needs. To solve this issue, developers can create elements such as filters and sort tools using which users can directly find the content they are looking for.
#8 Make it screen-reader accessible
Screen-readers have emerged as a very popular tool as the need to respect and address the concerns of visually impaired people are being prioritized. Screen-readers are tools that can be installed on devices and used with any apps or websites to read their contents. It converts digital texts to audio form.
Screen-readers read HTML files of the website directly to translate and convert the web page content into audio files. Your HTML file should contain all the information it needs to convert the content thoroughly. You must specify the language of your content in the <HTML> tag so that the screen reader knows what language the content is written in.
Another thing the designer must do is to put appropriate <html> tags such as <title>, <header>, <main>, <h2>, <ol>, <ul>, etc., in the content file. Screen readers use these tags to understand and convey the right message to the users.
#9 Focus on the color you add to the website
According to reports, color is one of the top visual elements users value on a website. It was reported that 39% of consumers appreciate colors used in a web design more than any other element. So to create an excellent website, adding the right colors in the background or fonts is essential.
Designers must ensure that the colors they use in the websites are catchy but not too bright so that they end up hurting users’ eyes and driving them to leave the website. Hence it’s necessary to strike the right balance of colors for your website.
#10 Don’t forget to add a feedback tab
It’s very much advisable to add the feedback tab on your website as a part of your web design strategy. Feedback tabs provide users with a provision to put their queries and thoughts regarding the contents of your website.
After all, any organization that respects and listens to the questions and acts on them always earns credibility from the customers. The same goes for websites; to make users stick to your website, you must provide them with a way to express their thoughts and address their problems.
To Conclude
To make your website stand out from a herd of similar ones, your web designs must stand out from the rest. In this post, we discussed ten effective strategies that web designers must practice to create an exceptional website. The listed ten practices will help you create unique web designs and increase the chances of visitors sticking to your website for a longer time.