Is Your Web Design Hurting Your Content?
Most web design company professionals agree that content is king. This simply means that most readers of web pages go online looking not for cutesy images or even interesting animations, but rather content, such as articles, tips, information, and videos. Your readers are not so much interested in seeing your web design prowess as they are getting information that is useful or entertaining to them. Unfortunately, many businesses are so hung up on getting interesting web design, that they end up hurting their content. Is this affecting you? Just ask yourself the following questions:
1) Does your web design make it hard for viewers to find what they want? If your audience is constantly confused about where they are on your web page and where they can go, your Web navigation is not very good. Your Web navigation should make it easy for your audience to find exactly the information they’re looking for. If you’re not sure how your Web audience is able to navigate your web site, just ask. Set up a poll that determines whether or not your audience is satisfied with your web site. Then, simply listen to the answers. If you don’t have the time to go through the information yourself, your web design firm can generally set up market research that determines the effectiveness of your web site. This can be invaluable in helping you build a better web site.
2) Does you web site make it hard to see your content? Lack of color contrast and a busy background can lead to eye strain and can make your text almost unreadable. A simple background color and a contrasting text color is a good bet. 12 point font or slightly larger — but not too large — is also a good design choice. Choose basic background colors, and when it comes to articles or longer pieces of text, always placed them on a white background. This simply makes them easier to read. Avoid busy backgrounds with lots of little titles or images altogether. They may look cool in theory, but they make reading your material very hard.
3) Is your content readable on different computers? Your web site may look great on the company computer or on a new personal computer, but not everyone has a high-grade machine. Students may be viewing your web site from ancient laptops, and some of your customers need using old machines in an Internet café. Make sure that you test out your web site on different computers to make sure that different operating systems, different Internet browsers, different monitors, different systems all still feature your web site in its best light.
4) Is your content formatted simply? If you’re using lots of formatting tricks — such as tables, frames, or lots of fonts, you are hurting your content by making it hard to read. If you’re in doubt about how to make your web site more readable, make it simpler. Many companies are scared to go simpler on their web site, because they want to convince their clients that they know how to use all the latest web design elements. Many companies simply confuse a high tech web site with a very busy web site. In reality, when you look at the highest ranking web sites, such as Google or Yahoo, notice that they use very simple web design elements — in fact elements that could have been used 10 years ago.