In today’s day and age, everyone everywhere is connected to the Internet. That being said, businesses today must stay at the forefront of all digital design trends to transform how they interact with their customers and provide a unique, yet positive, customer experience. Exceptional web design can make a huge difference in how your customers view you and how they view the worth of your products and/or services. Let’s explore the top 5 design tips companies should take into consideration in order to provide your users with a digital experience that will draw them back to your site time and time again.
Goal #1 – Create a Design that Represents Your Brand
- People will judge your brand on how your site looks; in many cases, your site may be the first thing customers will see that represents your brand.
- There is so much to think about when designing your site – brand guidelines, background, buttons, colors, images and fonts – think about how your site will align with your current marketing materials and branding. Your site should be appealing, represent who you are and who you want to be, and be an asset that you are proud to share with your online community.
Goal #2 – Be Cutting Edge
- Think outside the box – push boundaries to refresh your site and choose intentionally forward thinking choices, because comfort in design is in the past.
- Be aware of today’s trends. Today, content is king, and minimalism and micro interactions are popular. Incorporate these current trends into your design for a cutting edge feel.
- Consider the trends of tomorrow and think about what lies ahead – tomorrow, we predict that content will continue to be king, ADA/508 Compliance will become increasingly important, responsive design will continue to grow, and originality will help you stand out from the crowd.
Goal #3 – Use Analytics to Get it Right
- There is a wrong and a right in terms of how your site should look: use analytics to make informed decisions on which to base site changes. A/B testing can help you know for sure that the changes you make will be beneficial to your site success.
- Be intentional, and ask ‘why’ when making design decisions.
Goal #4 – Design Must be Mobile-Friendly
- The need to be mobile-friendly is only going to increase in the next few years, as we make more and more use of our mobile devices.
- When mobile design is the priority, it may be wise to design the website for mobile first, and then create the desktop version from this.
- To decide how exactly you want to make your site mobile-friendly, it may be useful to know the difference between responsive and adaptive mobile design. A responsive site offers fluid movement with browser screen size, while an adaptive site is one that has been designed for specific screen sizes.
Goal #5 – Design Must Support Functionality
- It is important to not only consider how your site looks, but how easy the design is to use. In order to engage your audience, the user interface and user experience must complement one another and work together – when both of these elements are spot on, you’ll have the successful site you’re looking for.
- Less is the new more. This means having a clean, intentional design, directing users where you want them to go – you can take the lead. Titles, text and calls to action should have a character cap.
- It is crucial that your site design supports the needs of your users, so it is very important that you understand your site audience and their needs before beginning the design process.
- With a strong concept of who your target audience is in place, you can focus on personalizing your site, providing different designs for segments of your audience interested in different topics – on an insurance site, for example, a site viewer that has previously shown an interest in car insurance might see more images, links and content related to car insurance in the future, as opposed to home insurance or other unrelated products.
Great site design can hugely impact customer experience, and it’s important to have a design that is unique, especially in comparison to your competitors. However, it’s most vital to create a design that will work well through all channels, allowing you to have an omni-channel strategy that is consistent throughout. Perfecting your design across your website, mobile site, any apps and paper marketing materials you may have is a key step your business can take to get closer to fully embracing digital transformation.
About the author: Rachel Bennett, Marketing Communications Coordinator at Americaneagle.com, brings strong skills in Digital and Direct Marketing, PR, content writing and editing. While having several years of experience within the industry, Bennett is passionate about writing on trending topics and also enjoys drawing and traveling. Rachel studied for her BA in English Studies at The University of Nottingham, England.