Design is about more than making something look pretty. If you want to create an effective website, you need to combine aesthetics with accessibility. If a site looks good but is difficult to navigate or doesn’t load quickly, it will lose visitors in droves. Here are five elements of web design that can significantly improve the overall user experience:

1) Be aware of white space and navigation

2) Use contrast effectively

3) Keep text short and readable

4) Limit distractions on your homepage

5) Don’t use obnoxious colors or clutter

1. Visual/UX Research
2. User Experience (UX) & Usability Testing
3. Content Strategy and Content Editing
4. UX, Usability and Accessibility Testing

“Every web and mobile app is designed for one purpose only: to make it easy for the user to do something.”

“s/he can’t find content that s/he needs or what s/he wants from that website.” – Ravi Tewari.

“A user experience (UX) assessment is a series of technical tests to collect information about how users interact with your website.” – Ezra Cohan.

“Good web design requires more than making things look pretty.”

“The biggest mistake that website owners make is not testing their site on actual users before making changes.”

It’s helpful to test your site’s content and navigation with someone who has not seen your site before. Here’s a great tip: Don’t ask friends and family to do these tests for you, as they are likely to give you the answers you want to hear. Recruit a stranger who has never heard of your company or product. A user experience expert, a representative of a different department such as marketing or sales (someone who doesn’t work on the website every day), or even someone from another company, can be great testers.

“Beginners should begin by designing the main navigation of the website. Then create the content for each sub-section.”

“There are two types of content on a website – primary and secondary. Primary content is what you need to get the most clicks from your visitors and should be visually interesting, easy to read and compelling.”

“Secondary content is for long-term engagement and should be engaging, but not as important as primary content.”

“The primary purpose of a website is to provide information to its users. The secondary purpose is to encourage repeat visits by encouraging repeat actions such as buying a product or signing up for a newsletter and subscription box.

“Bad branding may mean a bad website.”

“Logos and branding can really add to the visual aspects of a website, thus making it more attractive.”

“Having the right background image, for example, can make users feel like they are in your world, even when they are not.”

“A website should be easy to use and accessible to all users.”

“Sometimes adding simple images or text such as “Our Services” or “About Us,” makes a website more accessible for people with disabilities.”

“Creating websites that are responsive is easier and faster than ever. There are many tools out there that allow you to make your website responsive, if anything, the process of creating a responsive website is easier than creating one the old-fashioned way.”