"Good design is good business," said Thomas John Watson in 1973. It later evolved into designing a concept that works. Apple founder and CEO, Steve Jobs held this belief close to his heart. Wherever you look, you see the implementation of this idea. Google, MailChimp, Nike, Baskin Robins and every other successful brand has created their unique design that profoundly influences their operations. It is especially true for service as product businesses. The layout of their website determines their sales, ROI and the future of the company. Even the timid and lesser known brands are now taking a step forward towards adopting good design to improve user experience (UX).
What is excellent web design?
Website Design is more than pure aesthetics. It is no longer about looking good or feeling good. Design to make website determines the way your users will react to your website experience. It encompasses the menu style, page layout, navigation option, call to action (CTA) placement and much more. It should address the communication challenges and bridge the gap between customer demand and company delivery. Therefore, finding the right design strategy involves more than employing famous design houses for your website development process. It entails the understanding of the core values of a business, the founding vision and company goals along with decoding the user personas. Sometimes, answering simple questions like "what effect will the use of bright red instead of crimson in our logo have on our customer?" can help you find the USP of your brand. To discover the right design elements, you need to think and analyze before you act. BigDropInc.com can help you find out the factors that are shaping the website design trends of 2018.
Why does a grand design require more than an artist?
A great design is often a collaborative effort from designers, strategists, and marketers who know the company inside and out. Streamlining design changes with marketing goals is not easy, but that is what your business needs to meet market demands and satisfy the customers. That is the only path to success. Great designs cannot happen by accident. You need to invest effort and team collaboration, weight your company stats on past sales and then think about the goals ahead to create the perfect design. According to a recent study by Adobe State of Create 2016, over 59% of the customers choose companies with better design over the competitors, and 45% pay more for the same product or services just because their chosen brand has a better website. Over 50% of the potential customers already judge companies based on design choices.
What are the typically poor web design choices?
People invest millions every day for designing better websites, products, and processes. Good design is an investment that obviously saves money in the long term and attracts more money too. A new company often has no market impression, and the only way it can create a dent in the already saturated market is by presenting a titillating design to its target audience. Now, it can pan out in two ways. First, the company chooses an excellent website layout that mobilizes the audience towards completing a purchase and the second scenario where the company picks an inferior design that repels the customers and sends them to the competitors.
Now, a bad design is a result of combinations of many elements.
Think of the new real-time status sharing option that Instagram has introduced recently. It not only violates the customer's search for online privacy, but it also shows that Instagram does not listen to its users! It has caused a worldwide outrage among the photo blog app users, and the average user satisfaction rate is falling fast. That is surely something you do not want. You need to pick design changes that enrich the UX.
The leading design trends of 2018 that are no longer just predictions
This year has so far been exciting for web design. Most expert designers are picking brighter and bolder colors for their website layouts. It is the year for bold and bight minimalism.
Web design is finally taking a step forward towards influencing UX. These elements in website design in 2018 are propagating the movement of a potential buyer down the sales funnel. Fluid website design with clear navigational cues and CTAs can catalyze the conversion process like no other method or tool. The holistic model is replacing the need for fragmented guidance systems and individual elements as a part of a website layout.
A few final words
Website design is another investment in the process of business development and branding. Therefore, it calls for at least one foolproof way to measure the ROI. It might not seem too easy, but often measuring the organic effects like traffic, CTR, bounce rates, dwell time and conversion rates generate the necessary numbers that determine the positive impact of the design implementations and the extent of customer satisfaction. Good design should always be functional. So, no matter how big or how small your design change is, you need to find out if it will at all be helpful for your brand image, customer acquisition, and overall profit.
Author Bio: Silvia Watson is a freelance content writer. She has written many good and informative articles on different categories such as technology, health, fashion, education, career, travel etc. She is a featured author at various authoritative blogs in the health and fitness industry and currently associated as a blogger with various websites.
