What Makes A Good Web Designer?
A website is a critical component for the success of the majority of businesses in the current age. Most people these days when looking for a particular service will use a search engine to find what they are looking for. This ultimately means that a user’s first impression of a business will be their website. Statistics show that 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. As a web designer, it is key to have the relevant skills and knowledge to be able to produce beautiful sites with fantastic usability to ensure they generate that great first impression. So, what makes a good web designer?
Web design is subjective, therefore what one person likes another person may find unattractive. There is no right or wrong way to design but is important to understand that a great website is not always based on its visual design but heavily on its usability and utility too.
Structure
The structure is a key element when it comes to designing a website. As a web designer, there will be areas of a page that you will want to draw attention too. They could be titles or call to actions sections. Developing a clever way to do this will ensure the right content is read at the most appropriate times and also improves the flow of a website.
Optimisation
Some websites can be incredibly slow to load. According to Google, 53% of mobile website visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. For every one second delay in site load time, conversions fall by 12%. We at least want to give users the opportunity to view a website. Optimisation of as site can significantly improve a user’s visit, this can be done by reducing image sizes, keeping code clean or compressing HTML, JavaScript and CSS files.
Analytics
Attractive home page (bounce rate) – With modern technology, we can now gather statistics on a user’s journey through a website, such as how long they stay on the site for, how many pages they visit, or different media they interact with. With this information, we can gain an in-depth understanding of areas where a website is thriving and where it may be lacking interest. The main statistic a web designer will identify is the bounce rate of a website. The bounce rate describes the percentage of visitors who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate usually means that a homepage may not be engaging as it should be. Being aware of these statistics will not only help improve that particular site but will also make a web designer know how to improve future websites.
Keeping up to date with technology
As we know, digital trends change at a very fast rate so keeping up with them will be useful as a web designer. Technology is always improving, and there are constant updates to HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Keeping abreast with new technologies and adopting them in your website can be very attractive to clients as they will see this as an advantage over their competitor’s websites.