With the array of tools and software in the market, it seems just about anyone can do website design, or can they? What actually needs to be taken into account when designing a website? To answer these questions, we’ll first need to understand what website design really requires.
Let’s have a quick look at several factors which contribute to an appealing and effective website design.
Meaningful User Interface and Well-Crafted User Experience
If graphic design is about how a website looks, user experience design or UX design is concerned with how users feel when they interact with a website and its user interface (UI) elements; from scrolling, navigation, and more. A website’s design will benefit from insights into how a user will interact with proposed designs. These insights may require research and recommendations from dedicated specialists which the average website designer may not be qualified for.
Website Design Needs to Be Responsive
How a website is experienced gets influenced by how it is displayed across various devices; from desktops to mobile devices. A website designer will have to visualize how a given design will appear and be experienced across devices, and optimize the design accordingly. Simply put, attention to responsive design is now a prerequisite for website design.
A Design that Blends with Your Brand
Let’s say we have assembled an appealing and responsive website design. Does it reflect your personal or corporate brand? Do the visuals and colour scheme of the website design reflect your brand or are they just merely appealing? While certain colour schemes of a website design may be effective and user-friendly, these may or may not be aligned with your brand identity. Will the designated website designers take these into consideration and can they strike a balance?
Optimized for SEO
Having a beautifully design website that reflects your brand but which receives little to no traffic will not support your objectives for the site either. Whoever is designing the website has to be guided by SEO considerations. Based on an SEO audit, you may find that certain user interface elements and content need to be adjusted, and these may have implications for the overall design of your website.
Optimized for Conversions
Whether it is CRM, lead nurturing, or sales, your website, like your social media channels, will play an integral part in the process. Your website design has to do its part in facilitating all of the above objectives. But is your website designed for conversions?
The Portfolio
As can be seen, website design requires several expertises which need to be aligned with a website’s overall objectives. Having a team which appreciates the big picture can help you assemble various expertise to achieve very specific objectives.
Does an individual designer or agency have all the required expertise under one roof, with a clear understanding of a website’s overall objectives? Do they have adequate knowledge of current design trends which may impede or facilitate these goals?
Website Design: Beyond Looks
Achieving an appealing and effective website design goes beyond utilizing template designs with adjustments to colour scheme and layout. Instead, it increasingly requires diverse specialists who ‘talk’ to each other and who are aligned on the overall objectives of a website.
All of the above aspects of website design can be effectively accomplished by a team of cross-functional personnel, ranging from graphic designers and copywriters to SEO specialists and marketing personnel. Your graphic designer needs to be aligned with your copywriter, who in turn needs to be aligned with SEO and marketing specialists—these various functions contribute to making a website’s design effective and appealing, and none should be done in isolation.
So who can do website design? The short answer may be that many people can do website design. But who can do it right and make it work?
How Verztec can help you
Verztec is a leading ISO 9001:2008 Global Content Consulting Company that offers language services in over 100 languages, supporting companies across various industry sectors, in addition to having expertise in communication design and web development. Verztec applies its diverse expertise to serving clients’ specific needs by taking a bird’s eye view of clients’ strategic needs and organizing the relevant expertise which work as one unified unit to achieve the objectives of clients.
Drop us an email at enquiry@verztec.com or call +65-6577 4646 for a discussion on website design solutions that are tailored to your specific needs.
About the Writer
Jonathan is an Editor at Verztec Consulting. Coffee and travel photos may get him hyped up for conversations. Alternatively, simply toss him an idea or two for a storyboard or a write-up on technology, design and marketing.