Website design has a variety of functions. From looking great and showing off your company logo and branding, to helping search engines understand the content of your website, there are a range of aspects to consider. However, the ultimate purpose of the website should not be overlooked. And this relates directly to the users. User experience is vital in website design, and that’s what we excel at, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.
As Manchester’s leading web design experts, we know our stuff when it comes to user experience and user expectations. As a result, we have produced this guide to website design to meet user expectations.
What are the user expectations?
Each and every visitor to your website will have their own expectations about the website design, even before your website has loaded. The most common things that users are looking for in terms of the website design are:
- a simple, clear navigation system
- a responsive website
- a website that is quick to load
Simple clear navigation system
The navigation system (menu) that you use has to be intuitive. This is essentially what Apple picked up on all those years ago, and what has made them such a success. And no, before you ask, I’m an Android fan. But credit where it’s due, straight forward navigation is the way forward.
Whenever someone lands on your website, they were either looking for specific information from a search query, or they are looking to buy your product or use your service. Either way, they have a clear idea of what they need from your website. You can’t guess the needs of every website visitor, but you can make it easier for them to get where they want to be. This is where your menu comes in.
The trouble is, online we are all impatient. So someone that clicks through to your website, probably wont read it. In fact, they’ll give it a quick scan while looking for the heading or page they already know they need. And if they don’t see it, they are likely to bounce, and look elsewhere. This can be really damaging to your stats.
To combat this, you need to make sure your navigation uses colours to indicate the different links to different pages, and make the link structure overwhelmingly clear.
Responsive Design
Responsive website design is absolutely essential. Not only is it what users expect, but with the latest changes Google is making, responsive design is almost a necessity for mobile websites.
If users land on your website from a mobile device, they deserve to see the same great content, and have the same experience that they would have on a desktop. This is however, often overlooked. We’ve all experienced poor websites that don’t load effectively on mobile devices. Links that cant be clicked and images that dont fit on the page are two common issues that occur.
Responsive design removes these barriers and provides users with what they expect. A great quality user experience.
Loading times
Who has time to wait for a website to load? Well, OK probably all of us, but the real question is: who has the patience? Practically, no-one. Users expect your website to be designed in such a way that it loads almost instantly.
This can be achieved through a range of methods, including:
- compressing all image files so that they are incredibly small in file size, making them much quicker to load
- a simple straight forward design, without animations or other features that can add to the load time
- optimised load times where different items are prioritized when loading. For example, you can load the rest of the page before the landing page video.
In summary
Website design to meet user expectations should involve simple and logical structure and navigation, responsive design, and short loading times. Here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we can offer all this along with top notch web marketing support. Why not get in touch with us today, as Manchester’s leading web design nerds.