Dieter Rams, a forward thinking German designer who worked for Braun in the mid twentieth century, came up with ten principles of good design. Although he dreamt these up before websites were even a thing, you can apply them to check your site’s user friendliness.
Good design is innovative.
Is your website continually presenting something fresh and new? Do you try to respond to the latest trends and developments and how they will affect your audience? Do you try to answer your audience’s questions before they have even asked them? Don’t let your website become static or stale, stay ahead of the game!
Good design makes a product useful
Your website, from the home page, must be straightforward, user friendly, easy to navigate and optimised for mobile devices. The call to action must be clear and the path to purchase should be easy to access. Anything less is bad design.
Good design is aesthetic
Your website must be good looking. First impressions count and no visitor to your homepage should be put off by an apparent lack of care in presentation. Don’t leave your site languishing in a drab, dowdy or out of date condition, with boring or mismatched colours. Refresh it with contrasting colours, clean and simple layouts and cutting edge appeal.
Good design makes a product understandable
Your homepage should make it abundantly clear to the visitor who you are and what you are selling. If these two elements are not immediately obvious you risk a high drop off rate. Your home page is your shop window, so make sure that you are giving people the right information to encourage them through the ‘front door’.
Good design is unobtrusive
The layout, the fonts, how you use the space and where you choose to place the call to action are all important. The design of each page should encourage the visitor to engage and ultimately make a purchase without making it too shouty and obvious and putting them off in the process.
Good design is honest
Getting your story straight is important when you put your brand into a website. The story you tell should reflect in your website’s design. If your business can boast decades of experience then major on that as a USP with related imagery and fonts. Equally, don’t let your website pretend that you are something that you are not. Let the design truthfully tell the story of who you are and what you stand for, your honesty will build trust and pay off.
Good design is long lasting
You can’t avoid the fact that your website’s design will need a regular update but, in terms of user experience, your site will have longevity if it responds to your audience’s needs and makes it easy for them to access your products and services. Good sites will respond to a need the user did not even realise that they had. Also, your website needs to be designed in such a way as to retain your visitor’s information, starting an ongoing relationship with them and generating leads and more business for you.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail
This goes without saying. Everything needs to be thought through from the user’s perspective, after all, your competitor’s site is only a click away! A good site will show great empathy with the end user and will work well, look good and deliver.
Good design is environmentally friendly
Of course, digital marketing is intrinsically more environmentally friendly than its paper counterpart, however, any business that has compassion and care for the environment and can communicate it through their digital marketing is making their product or service that much more saleable.
Good design is as little design as possible
Minimal and sleek are the two words that spring to mind. Brilliant website design builds trust and communicates value without having to say it twice.
Cre8ion is a digital marketing agency that produces fresh, purposeful and innovative designs for websites. If you need help with your website’s design please do not hesitate to contact us.