In today’s world, the internet is constantly being flooded with unique, eye-catching and visually pleasing websites. This can put pressure on brands and companies to try to make their own websites cooler by enhancing its visual aesthetic. While it is a great idea to have a website that stands out from your competition, it is crucial that you nail the functionality aspect first.
Need For Balance
Understanding the importance of having a balance between website functionality and design will allow you to increase traffic flow and optimise conversions. If you’re spending time and effort to develop a website, you need to make sure it’s going to operate with optimal effectiveness and influence.
Think about it, you’re browsing the web for a product or service and you come across a super cool website that’s excitingly animated and has really caught your attention. However, when you try to find the information you need or make a purchase; it feels like a maze. You’d be likely to give up and find the product or service elsewhere, right? Your customers aren’t any different. If they can’t find what they need easily and quickly, they won’t hang around, spending ages trying to navigate a confusing website.
It’s not easy to find the perfect balance of user experience, visual aesthetic, functionality, navigability and opportunity for conversion and searchability. But that’s why it’s important to make sure you are very clear when conversing with your designer. You can find our guidelines and tips to use when writing a website design brief here.
Be the Customer
While this may seem like a simple, silly step; during the entirety of the design process, it’s important to look at your website through the eyes of the consumer. Just because you know where something is on the website, doesn’t mean that potential customers will.
If you can go through each step of development through the customers perspective, you’ll have a much better chance at providing futures users with the best and easiest experience possible.
Level Up the Functionality
You need to make sure it is incredibly easy for your customers to use and navigate your website. If they can’t find what they’re looking for within the first 10-20 seconds of being on your website, they’ll probably give up; especially if they don’t owe you any brand loyalty.
So how do you make your website easy to use? Here are some ways to ensure your customer will find what they’re looking for:
Sight Path
When viewing a website, customers’ eyes will follow a certain sight path. It is crucial that all of the necessary information, links and buttons are placed on this sight path.
Call To Actions (CTAs)
Calls to action are incredibly important. While a customer is on your site for a reason, usually to purchase or inquire about something; sometimes they need a bit of reminding that they need to act. These CTAs are usually in the form of a button or banner prompting the customer to either send a message or call the company.
Standout Design
Once you’ve achieved the functionality required, you can focus on the actual design and appearance of the website. There are many different ways to make your website stand out over competitors but here are some of our favourite ways to do so:
- Colour, colour and more colour
- Shapes and patterns
- Something unique
- Dynamic content
- Interactive elements
Overall, it’s important that you understand how and why your website needs a balance between beauty and functionality. This necessary balance will keep your customers happy and want to return.