‘Liveness’ is the new buzzword in programming terms. It describes a user interface that is always active, bringing interactivity with the user to life online.
Brand over homepage
The homepage is dead, according to Dare’s creative partner Flo Heiss. Instead, he says, the brand should come through in every pixel across all of its websites and ad campaigns.
Mobile requires thought
It is essential for brands to consider mobile given the huge growth in the use of smartphones. But marketers need to understand why a consumer would want to access a particular site via a mobile, and adapt their content accordingly.
Simply DIY
There is a plethora of tools that make it simple to design a webpage. Some of the most popular include WordPress, Fireworks and Panic Coda. Early on, these services were very basic but now offer greater sophistication.
Good use of white space
One of the latest trends in web design takes its cue from magazine layouts, including ‘below-the-fold’ content, page flipping and a whole lot of white space.
HTML5 revolutionises web development
The latest version of ‘the language of the web’ could take over from plug-in-based rich-media apps, including Flash, Silverlight and Java.
Search is in
An increasing number of websites are prioritising search by making search boxes central to their landing page. This helps people looking for information and boosts traffic at the same time.
Single page option
Single-page layouts are becoming a red-hot trend in web design. These layouts are user-friendly, but require considerable forward planning and user-centric design.
‘Font-tastic’
Customised fonts and huge images are all the rage. Some brands are employing these elements to give visitors to their websites a gist of what their business is all about.
Websites made of fabric
German blog brainwashfactory.org is one example of how sites can be designed to appear as though they are made of luxury fabric.
Flawless design may be the ultimate goal when it comes to website development. But even though aesthetics play a vital part in attracting consumers, it is almost always content that keeps them coming back. Dan Leahul looks at what needs to be considered when establishing a presence online.
Look at your watch and count to three. One. Two. Three. Good. Not exactly a lifetime, is it? Think again. When it comes to web design, three seconds amounts to an eternity.
For brands, it’s the difference between a customer gained and a customer lost. Not just lost, but annoyed, spurned and begrudged. And not just a customer, rather a socially networked, web-savvy consumer, who wields the tools to publicly decry your brand and announce that you don’t have what it takes to hang tough in the digital age.
Web users typically wait three seconds to find what they are looking for before clicking elsewhere, according to research. In fact, a Forrester study recently suggested two seconds is actually closer to the mark – two seconds to give users exactly what they want, or at the very least, make it blatantly obvious how to find it. And that includes the time it takes to load the page, too.
So how does a brand create the perfect website? For many, it’s a simple, one-word answer: usability.
Usability is more than just easy navigation, clean graphics and wise typography choices, it’s the overall user experience. That means defining the purpose of the website and delivering it every time, and it means the site is easy to understand and maintain. Simplicity is key. The simpler a website is, the more effective it is, but this involves a lot of careful planning and execution.
“Long gone are the days of brand sites that just sit there, telling people how wonderful they are,” says Flo Heiss, creative partner at Dare. “Brands need to get people to experience what they stand for, and that needs to happen everywhere, not just on their site.”
Dare’s website for Sony Bravia’s ‘Colour like.no.other’ campaign worked on these principles. It includes user interaction, a multitude of colour and graphics, social media and – despite its complex design – is very easy to use. On the off chance the user grows slightly confused, helpful reminders are staked around every corner.
Worst offenders
To see what not to do, pay a visit to webpagesthatsuck.com or badwebsiteideas.com, or similar outposts of awfulness. And if you are feeling brave, sneak a peek at the ‘100 worst websites of all time’ lists to see if your page has been branded with the scarlet letter ‘U’, for ‘unusable’.
Common user complaints will feature one or more of the following: pop-ups, broken back buttons, pointless flash intros, typos, invisible links, distracting animation, unnecessary soundbites and the worst offender, lack of contact information. Even common features like drop-down menus are falling out of favour with users, as are links that open in new windows.
More often than not, problems aren’t with the aesthetics, but with what lies under the bonnet, and can require a total web overhaul – say for example, a poorly functioning in-house search.
Luckily, if your website is rubbish (which flatlining traffic figures coupled with poor sales will soon make obvious), it can be a quick fix – just put yourself in the seat of the user.
“If you fail to put user needs at the centre of your website design then you may find that even the greatest graphic designs are wasted as customers flock to more usable and accessible websites,” says Trenton Moss, director at Webcredible.
Treat the user like a best friend, who is blindfolded, and an idiot. Don’t make them think: be their eyes and guide them, tell them how to find what they are looking for, and always give them what they want when they click. Deliver on the promise, and anticipate their image of your brand.
After they’ve found it, tell them what to do next, or show them options. And always have a way to get back ‘home’. The idea itself is simple, yet achieving true usability is anything but.
Aesthetics are crucial for the first impressions, but content is what leaves users salivating for more, explains Heiss. Just look at Amazon, which wouldn’t claim to be the best-looking site, but its content has propelled it to the top.
Knowing what users want
Claiming Amazon, or even Google, are perfect websites might warrant a few complaints, but in terms of usability, they are the digital overlords. “The question is not one of perfection, but establishing what works and what doesn’t,” says Damian Mitchell, head of development at Glue.
It’s something that the best – like Google – do well. It tests the waters, rounds up user input, and tweaks and analyses until a problem arises. Then it starts the process again. See Gmail’s uncontested five-year streak with a ‘beta’ tag for an example of this.
“Da Vinci believed perfection was death,” says Mitchell. “Once you’ve crystallised the idea, the perspective and the design, you leave no room for the idea to grow, to evolve. The nature of web design and development to date has been something of an evolutionary phenomena.”
‘Be flawed, be ugly, and keep growing, keep innovating – it’s all built into the system’ goes the argument. Dare’s Heiss agrees: “Get people to love or hate what you do. Play with it. Rip it apart. Pass it on. Make consumers into participants.”
Fortunately, the business of getting users to participate is booming. Tech industry headlines earlier this month announced that Twitter, following its $100 million (£63m) funding round, scooped up the user-experience engineer Mark Trammell, who spent the past two years at Digg fine-tuning one of the web’s most popular social news sites.
Webcredible’s Moss, says his company has noticed a palpable shift from auditing near-complete sites to integrating user-centric design elements throughout the development process.
The design process now involves the user at every stage, he says, initially in a research capacity to establish user needs prior to any development actually taking place. A continual cycle of designing and usability testing then ensues, with paper prototype, lo-fidelity and hi-fidelity wireframes, graphic designs and finished web pages.
Remember, the perfect website is one that is useable, and while a sleek homepage and breezy interface is important, it’s the content that’s going to keep your users coming back for more. But wait, what about social media? Has that not come along and flipped the entire game on its head?
Social media has changed everything, even the idea of a homepage. Luckily, it’s still all about the user. Jaws were dropped earlier this year when Skittles decided to forego the idea of a traditional homepage, and instead turned itself into a portal for social networking, including links to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.
Moss calls Skittles the “extreme” example, but claims that it worked by making the user the star of the show. “The key is to allow interaction with the brand rather than just encouraging sharing, which isn’t confined to the homepage,” he says. “Social media channels should at the very least be linked to from your website, where interaction and discussion can take place.”
While social media has blown the lid off the confines of traditional web design, it is still shackled down by the golden rule: if users see something they like, they will act on it, either by sharing or communicating.
Web design was once as simple as “if you build it, they will come”, but those days are long gone, says Glue’s Mitchell. Instead, brands need to put user-centric design elements at the core of their website, and involve users during each stage of the design process. By anticipating user needs, you’ll find that three seconds is more than enough time to turn a first visitor into a customer for life.
Smart think!ng: Web development
1. Give users what they want in three seconds or less, or they will go somewhere else
2. It is all about the user. Shape your website around their needs and encourage input during every step of the design process
3. Aesthetics are necessary for a good first impression but it is content that keeps users coming back for more
4. Don’t strive for perfection, test what works and what doesn’t, gather criticism and start over. Always evolve
5. Social media is killing the notion of traditional web design, but the song remains the same: it has to be all about the users
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