When it comes to the design of your website, it is important to be creative and fancy so that it grabs the attention of the visitors and encourage them to view the website. However you need to be careful while making it very fancy since the more complicated it gets the higher is the risk of being harder to navigate. Hence it is also necessary to keep the basic elements as simple as possible. Thus the best way forward would be to have a sophisticated design while making sure it is intuitive. Special care should be taken while designing the navigation since several studies conducted over the internet have shown that a complicated navigation design can work against you.

To be able to design effectively, the best place to start is to the Internet itself. The first task would be to study the Internet and research as to which kind of design is effective and what is popular with the visitors and what turns them off. Here are few tips and tricks to expand your outlook of the internet and make sure you get it right.

Who is the website visitor?

Many of us do not have any knowledge of what type of visitors are going to visit your website. This is one of the reasons that their marketing strategy is lagging when it comes to the website. The fact of the matter is that the website visitors are no different from your visitors and so are their habits for that matter.

For example:

Visitor to a small shop will usually not have the opportunity to scan through all the store products, but instead simple request for what they want and be on their way. However when it comes to a supermarket the behaviour of the visitor is very different.

They tend to carefully walk through each isle and scan the products on display to find something that interests them. The Internet is quite similar. It pays to carefully display all the products with short informative description and thumbnail image which are categorised in a good manner.

The same applies here to, since if the visitor spots something of interest they will try to seek more information and may even purchase it. The advantage of doing so over the internet is that the visitor can information about the product from several other sources.

Thus here is a brief preview of how the average online visitor behaves:

• Quality: The visitor will always appreciate a good quality website in terms of both design and functionality. In fact a website with a good quality website design can also make the visitor look the other way when it comes to other elements like onsite advertisements seor popups.

• Credibility: One of the most important factors that influences the visitors the credibility of the website. This makes it essential to include several certificates logos in your website design that can confirm the website security and more. Besides which it is also a good idea to support any facts and figures on your website with the authentic source.

• Analysing the website: When a visitor does visit a website the first thing they do is scan the website for anything interesting. They tend not to read the big paragraphs of content and instead check the images, topics section if any and the navigation menu. This is a good insight into how to design the page that is welcoming your visitor to your website.

• Testing the visitor’s patience: The average visitor doesn’t take more than 3 minutes to analyse the website and figure out whether or not it is going to be useful to them or not. If the website is complicated or navigation is not intuitive there is a larger cognitive load on the visitor. As a result the average visitor will simply leave your website if it is not intuitive and it is never a good idea to test the patience of the visitors.

• Taking control of the flow: The visitor will always like to be in control of their activity on a website. For example, it often happens that while performing a search on a website, when you follow a link you lose track of the search result thus the visitors has to do the search all over again. It is a good idea to design your website with plenty of navigation options so that a user can always find their way around the website with ease and always have all the information they are likely to require at hand.

Design that works for you:

One of the best websites designs are those which do not make the users think too much. The websites that are designed such that their purpose, message and theme obvious provider a richer experience for the visitors. On the other hand the websites that make the visitors guessing or scratching their heads as to which page to navigate too, to get the relevant information will not be very popular amongst the visitors. As the visitor navigate further and finds that they have to work hard to find the relevant information they will begin to lose confidence in the website and begin to question the credibility of the website.

The bottom line is that the lesser the load on the visitor to figure out mundane elements like navigation, content and the information they are looking for the more the better. Since then they have more time on their hand and able to concentrate their efforts on the other things that matter on the website.

The Visitor’s focus:

It is always important to maintain the visitor’s focus, since by doing so they you land a new deal, sell a product or gain another customer. However it is vital to use the right kind of content to attract the attention of the visitors.

For example a big graphics element stating that there is a service or product available for free is bound to attract the visitor’s attention. However you need to make sure that it is truly free and not a marketing gimmick just to gain the attention of the visitor. Since if so it will adversely affect your efforts and you are likely to lose many visitors hence decreasing the traffic to your website.

The outcome would be same if the product is actually for trail and not actually free.

Hence although it is vital to maintain the focus of the visitors to give them a feeling that they are on the perfect website for them, it is also vital that you do not mislead them or promise something that you do not offer. Because this is one technique that will not work on the Internet.

Testing is good:

When it comes to testing, there is nothing like too much testing. The more you test and the earlier you start testing the better it is. Testing is vital since that is the only way we can be certain that you have got it right. One of the main reasons that a website fails is that the testing happens very late in the development process and it is not enough.

Even a website is made in steps, completing one module at a time and slowly building to the final website before launch. Thus it would be wrong to be under the impression that testing is required only for a big desktop application.

The website being developed needs to be tested to make sure that it working as expected at every stage. However what is more important is that you also need to make sure the development process is going in the right direction and thus test it as per the requirements at hand.

Thus you website testing should be an iterative process and not something that is done just before you deliver the final product. Even the website design does require to be tested. For example the design should ideally be tested for ease of use and from the requirements perspective to start with.

Alakmalak Technologies provides the bigger picture:

Alakmalak Technologies is a website design and development company that has been around since a long time. They have successfully launched many websites and created lots of different website designs. The fact they have had the good opportunity of dealing with more than 600 small and medium size business over the years from over 25 countries is a good testament to their quality and commitment. In fact they have developed more than 2000 websites over the years, a feat that not many web development firms can relate too.

Hence the website designers have a fairly good idea of what makes and breaks a website. Thus when you choose Alakmalak you can be sure that you are in safe hands.

• A different approach to effective web design
• Principles Of Effective Web Design