When you think about website design, you think about nice interfaces, cool fonts, and uniform colour combinations. Surely an appealing website is a good thing, but reality is, a website’s design is much more than just beauty. Especially in Ontario, where businesses compete in a vibrant and diverse market, your website needs to work harder than just looking pretty. It has to perform.
So let’s get into it and learn why Ontario website design is not only about how it looks but quite the opposite. Get to know what makes a website better than other websites.
Initial Interaction is Significant, But Not The Only Factor That Matters
Walking inside a high-end restaurant with flash but ordering soup with groceries and ignoring the customers can be very disappointing. Similar to a website. Your website could be stunning graphically and can be a wonder visually, but if the performance is too bad, it won’t matter. If the website takes too long to load or is poorly designed for mobile phones or is toast in regards to usability, then the website would have very low interactions.
In Ontario, the design of one’s website has to be on point as graphics and technology can vary drastically. It depends upon the location of the business, whether it be quaint street boutiques or technology start-ups in Toronto. A good website insists on being designed in a way that emphasizes appearance but also core functionality.
Formal Requirement: The Usability Factor, Many Can See, Few Can Do
To build a good design skill set aren’t enough, it requires clear understanding and application of design on the websites various components.
– Navigation: When a user is searching for something, be it using a desktop or a mobile, is three clicks the limit, or do users get let down by being lost in and amongst menus?
– Disability Access: Is your website accessible for disabled people or is it a nightmare with no way out? Every website operating in Ontario must comply with some form of ‘All In OA’ that aims to eliminate such limits.
– Waiting Period: Let the five loading seconds be obsolete as no one wants to wait a second for pages to load, it’s all about instant gratification.
In reality, they most likely are not going to do that. If we consider statistics, a delay of even one second can reduce conversions by as much as 7%. These are all related to user experience (UX), and I think this is a fundamental feature of any good website. A site that is not user friendly, even if it is very attractive, will always disappoint its users.
– Aware of Target Audience: Ontario is home to a lot of different cultures, businesses and even interests. Your site should appeal to your particular audience, be it a young professional living in downtown Toronto or a farmer from the outskirts of south Ontario.
– Cultural Sensitivity: Inclusion to the website’s design is important because of Ontario’s site’s diversity.
Note that websites of high-end cafes situated in Ottawa and a website of a mechanic in Thunder Bay will be completely different, and it should be so. Wine and Cheese Bread Shop’s page is more than just a website; it is a virtual presentation of the restaurant.
SEO: The Unsung Hero
Consider this for a moment: the most well designed website will be utterly useless if it is not being sought out by anyone. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a rather unglamorous cousin of website designing yet it ensures success.
The website acquired is not enough, in the province of Ontario. The competition becomes tougher and tougher since simply acquiring a pretty website won’t cut it. There is ranking involved as well, and design aspects are even more resourceful in web developing as many would assume.
– Future and potential web traffic could face limitations as rankings could be affected by the lack of mobile responsiveness to a website. (Fun fact: Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices!)
– Search Engine ranking can be impacted by page load times, and remember the rude guest that we hopefully did not invite: that goes on my list of concerns too.
– Google has several loves, and several hates: Two things it adores is ‘improved on-page time’ and ‘reduced bounce rates’ – and a clean, legible design achieves just that.
Final Thoughts: When Aesthetic Cohesively Blends In With Functionality to Give the Perfect Website Designs
First of all let’s set the record straight, it’s not a bad thing to own a website that captures the eye of every visitor, however, it is not enough. The great websites are those that seamlessly combine a great design with a user-interface, and great content with actionable interactions.
Given the market within Ontario is already saturated, your website cannot simply be another decoration. It must do work as well, it must attract, educate and convert the one-time buyers into long time clientele.
Well, the next time that you are on your website or are planning to have it redesigned, you should first ask yourself a few things. Do you just want another decorative website or does it carry power? If it is both then you are doing the right thing.
To conclude, move forward and take control of the online space, or well at least Ontario.