The Design Process
If you need to have a Web site designed for your business, there are many things that you need to consider. Because your site will represent your business, it needs to look professional and have the information and functionality that your customers need. We have put together some basic aspects to take into account.
- Purpose: One of the things that we come across all too often is companies putting together a website just for the sake of having a site up. They probably heard that they must have a “presence on the web” and so they put something together without giving it much thought. When someone finds their site however and it has no useful information or value ad for the visitor that visitor will be turned off to the point where they would have been better off not having the site at all. It is therefore vital to define the purpose of the site before you start.
- Audience: The expected users should be considered when designing the site. Will most users be looking for specific products or service information? Or will many be visiting the site for general information and be more interested in facts and details of a non-specific nature? Will users expect detailed technical information, or will they prefer general descriptions?
- Branding: With the number of similar sites and services springing up all over the Web, brandability can be a real deal breaker. First time visitors should know what your company is about at a first glance. Use your site’s title, its design, taglines, post titles, about pages, logo and navigational elements to communicate what your company is about.
The main point to take away here is that branding is not about a logo in the corner of a site. Various features go into creating a winning brand, and there may be no logo at all. Look for something to differentiate your site from the rest, and play up to it. Play up to it so much that when a visitor sees that one aspect that you are pushing anywhere, they think of your site. - Usability: It is so important that you make your site easy to use and understand. You only have a limited amount of time to capture your visitor and keep them browsing your site. People have to be able to grasp the functioning of the site immediately after scanning the home page--for a few seconds at most. If they cannot find what they are looking for easily they will be gone. A clear and simple navigation system along with straightforward wording is some of the elements to consider.
