What makes a Design Good or Bad?

Looks matter. As bad as it sounds, but when it comes to web design, the way your website looks can be the deciding factor for people whether they want to stay on your website or not.

Poor design can make users take more time and effort to do their intended task, leaving them dissatisfied or even frustrated. And they would hesitate to visit your site again. Needless to say, having a negative impact on your business. Other consequences of having bad design are that people will doubt the quality of your product or you lose your credibility. You may get bad reviews for the usability of your design. And the worse thing is, you are practically helping your competitor.

What good design can do for your website are quite obvious. It can bring more traffic, your conversion rate increases, increase the credibility of your brand, make the user experience better making more users to stay on your website, gives you room for development, bring down the cost of maintenance and more.

What makes a good design?

So, it is undisputed that a website with good design can help you make your mark in the online market. But having a good color palette and nice looking components is not just what makes for a good design. It is essential to keep in mind that when users visit your website, they will not bother to study what your website is about. So the design should be able to convey what the design is about just by looking at it.

Say, for example, if you have a website that sells baby products, using a very bright color palette would not be very sensible.

Some of the key points that can make a design and good and effective:

1 - Knowing what kind of design works best

When it comes to an effective design, less is always more. Minimalism in a website has been the most sought-after trend. The clean arrangement of content and other components with proper use of white space makes the interface user-friendly. But if minimalism is not the personality of your brand, like say you have a website for luxury hotels, minimalism is not for you. But that does not mean that you clutter your website. The website should still be easy to use and navigate.

 Also Read:10 Beautiful Free Flat Minimalist Admin Templates

2 - Technology

Decide upon the technologies upon which the website will be built on. Knowing about the technologies and its capabilities can help a great deal in making the design achieve the most of it.

3 - Know the target audience

Knowing the target audience, which group of people is your design targetted to is important. The gender of the target audience, age group, country, etc - all have a different need and tastes. Understanding your audience matters a great deal.

4 - Typography

Good typography depends on the font, font size used, and the space around the text. Good choice of typography effects the readability of the website.

5 - Keeping up with the latest design trends

For your online business to make a very good impact on your users, it is imperative that you keep updating your websites with the latest trends that would be relevant to your brand. No matter how sophisticated service you provide, if that is not reflected on your website, users are likely to get the wrong message.

Recommended reading: Web Design Trends That Will Rule in 2018

6 - Clarity and ease of navigation

The user should be able to navigate through the website easily. When users visit your website, it should be evident where to go for the user to do the intended job.

7 - The Content

One of the most important parts of a design is the content in the design.

The design is not enough for telling the story to your users. You would need textual content to convey the essentials of your website like the services you provide, what sets you apart from rest of your competitions, what benefits are the users going to get if they choose to go with you, and more.

Cleverly used words can go a long way with the users.

Before writing the content to be included in the design, come up with the answers to the question - what should content include and what it should not?

• No keyword stuffing - Don't stuff your website with a ton of keywords. Use the keywords cleverly and sensibly.

• Display your contact details - Always make your contact details visible. This helps build trust with the users.

• Content should be organized and easy to navigate

• Display testimonials and reviews - Always include testimonials and reviews of the actual users would be helpful in making new users comfortable with your website and gain trust easily.

• Keep the content up to date.

• It's always good to show off your clients.

• Tell your users why you are different and different you can do for them. And let the users decide for themselves.

• Most importantly, try not to make any typos or grammar errors.

What makes a bad design?

1 - Responsive design

As the internet traffic is coming more and more from the mobile devices, it would be a crime not to go responsive. In the SEO perspective, responsive websites rank better also. Also, the design should no just adjustable to the mobile-friendly, it should look and feel like that the design was made for that particular mobile device.

2 - Loading time

People in this day and age want everything instantly online. So make sure the design does not make unnecessary loading time. One example for this is the design-builders that you can use to create designs with drag and drop components. This can create a lot of code in the backend resulting in the slow loading time of the website.

Large images and videos can impact the speed of the site. Images, especially in sliders, can be a burden for your site. Users don't always go through all the slides. So make the slider choice wisely.

3 - Custom Images

Try to use custom images as much as possible. It makes your website look professional and of good quality. Using stock images right off of the web does not really convey a superior quality in design.

4 -  Avoid misleading titles

Using misleading titles, texts, links or images can increase the bounce rate. If users click on a promising title and do not find what the title says, and if your design consists of misleading information like links that lead to an advertisement, it will make the user leave out of frustration. If the site has a high bounce rate, it can critically affect the ranking in Google.

5 - Unnecessary popups and ads

Popups can be used to prompt the users to take a particular action or remind them of something. But make popups can at some points be a little annoying. One way to make the popups less intrusive is to make the popups or ads appear on the bottom right end.

6 - Elements of distraction

Elements of the design like flashy animations, ads, popups from all directions, auto-playing audios and videos. Animations make the interface look exciting and interactive, but don't go overboard. Auto-playing audios and videos create a clutter on your website. If audios and videos are required on the website, give the users the choice whether they want to play it or not

7 - Inconsistency in themes

Maintain the same theme on the different pages of the same website. Users would not want to feel like they are different website when they are just on a different page.

Conclusion

As important it is to make a good design, so is knowing what makes for a bad design. The design is what communicates your brand and personality. And it's just not aesthetics that makes a good design, but the functionality of it as well.