Your website is a reflection of your brand. In the technological age, having a killer website is essential if you would like to have a strong online presence. By having a strong online presence, you will be able to generate more leads, increase credibility and much more. However, having a great website is not easy by any means. By including the following criteria, it will definitely help your website be more engaging, effective and user-friendly.
1. Purpose
A good website is able to convey its ideas upon entering the site. With great web design, you are able to convey information through illustrations, pictures and interaction. No matter what is the purpose of the website, the user should know what the website is about the instant he/she enters the site.
2. Navigation
Navigation is about how a user travels through a website. You generally want to keep the navigation throughout your website as simple and as easy to browse through as possible. With our attention span getting shorter, users are more likely to leave a website due to its inconvenient navigation. Simplistic navigation allows users to quickly find the information they are looking for when browsing your site. This leads to quick conversions as well as pleasant user experience.
3. Interactivity
Just like anything or anyone in life, we want meaningful and interesting interactions. Same goes to your website, users will typically lose interest in mundane interactions with your website. By integrating your brand’s ideas into the navigation and implementing meaningful interactions for users to browse through your website. By doing so, you engage the users and lengthens the time spent on your site.
4.Visual Design
A website with beautiful visuals will tempt users to further explore your website. With great visuals you can express your ideas and brand virtues. Unfortunately people will judge a website based on its visual design. That is why choosing the right typography, colour scheme, and layout is essential. A good visual design will increase the websites credibility by appearing more professional.
Obviously not a very good example of quality design. Source.
5. Content
Unique content is what differentiates your website from the rest. Content is what will attract your niche and build traction among the users. Content can range from pictures, videos or articles. The other benefit of publishing content is it will boost your website ranking on search engines. By tailoring your content to your niche with strategically added keywords, you are able to provide content to your niche while increasing traffic through search engine rankings.
6.Functionality and usability
To provide good user experience, your site should be fully functional and easy to navigate. Your site should be responsive to provide great user experience. Websites with sluggish and broken links will lead to a higher bounce rates. A clean and simplistic design will also improve both function and style. The design should be uncluttered for easy navigation. It is also essential that your website is mobile optimised as traffic from mobile is rising exponentially.
Examples of Great Websites
APW (apw.my)
APW is a place filled with history, operating since 1965. They were one of the most prolific printers in the country and have since transformed parts of their underutilized places into cafés, collaborative workspaces and more.
The content on the website lives in a colourful blocks, illustrations and text, at the click of an arrow users discover pictures that give visuals on how the place looks in person. Users can also be directed to parts of the website through their header located at the top of the website.
Screenshot of APW’s Our Story.
The design of the website resonates with APW’s history and industrialism. The history of the place is shown through the colour scheme of the website where they incorporate complementing colours that have a vintage vibe. The industrial feel of APW is exhibited with architectural sketches and having their content placed in blocks.
Chai Dental (kldentist.com)
Chai Dental’s website is designed in a way where it tallies the service that they provide. Which is clean, white and neat teeth. This is shown through the design of the website where the content of the website is organised very neatly while the colour scheme of the website is mainly white.
Full screenshot of Chai Dental’s homepage
Users can also easily browse through the website and quickly find any information they are looking for through the header of the page which makes navigation a breeze. The website is also mobile optimized, providing the great user experience for people across all platforms. With informative write ups on their services and technology used, customers can read up on which treatment they would require.
River of Life (riveroflife.com.my)
River of Life is a project to clean and transform 8 rivers in KL and the Klang Valley, bringing them back to life. With many info-graphics and pictures that are constantly being updated shows the progress on the project, users can easily follow along the journey of this great cause.
Screenshot of River of Life homepage
Through the design of the website, they are able to express what they would like to bring to our rivers. Clean, environmentally friendly and clear waters. Via the colour scheme of green and white, the whites symbolises cleanliness and purity while the greens symbolises growth, fertility and the environment. This also further emphasises the purpose of the site, to create awareness among the general public.
Users are able to cruise through the website with swift responses and many well written articles, videos and images. The content is compelling and educational with the aim to teach the public on how we can care for our rivers and the environment. With references on the effects of pollution for the public as well as telling the vivid stories of the history of our rivers.
Screenshot of River of Life’s content.
National Geographic (www.nationalgeographic.com)
The National Geographic page greets you with beautiful pictures that will leave you stunned. Known for their visual content, they play to their strengths. Instantly the purpose of the website is known. Scrolling past the main picture, you’re met with their content. The stunning images reel you in, as your scroll through the homepage.
National Geographic homepage.
Through the homepage, they are able to portray stories that describe the company’s visions, virtues and goals. The ability to concise so much information without cluttering the page is a great asset to have whereby you can maintain traffic throughout your website and direct traffic throughout the other pages on your site.
Navigation through the website is smooth and simple, guiding users to the important sections of the website. With great written content as well as beautiful visual storytelling, it’s hard for users to leave the site without spending a fair amount of time on their website. We tend to be attached to a company which connects to us emotionally, and National Geographic does this through their pictures, articles and stories.
Made by Google (madeby.google.com)
Made by Google is a website by Google where they showcase all of their products. The purpose of the website is clear with call to action buttons and big images advertising their products.
The design and layout of the website is minimalistic and simplistic, which mirrors the designs of their products. By mirroring the product with the website’s design and layout, users will be able to sense the flow throughout the website. The navigation through the site is smooth and quick throughout the site because of its design. The monochromatic colour scheme gives the website a very clean and professional look.
Falter Inferno (falter.wild.plus)
Falter Inferno is a website created by Falter, a weekly news magazine published in Vienna, Austria. Entering the page, you see a familiar sight. Someone stuck in traffic. In this case, the purpose of the website isn’t clear but the interactivity on the website provokes you to find out more.
Level 1 in Falter Inferno.
Click and drag down and you see a person throwing a pile of print into a tall wall of fire whilst being watched by two tall individuals. It tells the narrative where true journalism is dead due to the constrictions of censorship and other powerful bodies. The website tells a story through its moving illustrations and navigation. The way you navigate through the page breathes freshness.
The theme of the website revolves around satirical themes of the modern society with regards to technology, freedom of speech as well as other current issues. The interactive navigation immerses the user into the idea that the website is trying to conceive. With 9 “levels” of modern day issues, the website is thought provoking and visually pleasing, users will find themselves running through the website multiple times in admiration.
Let us know which website was your favourite and why, down in the comments below!