Webdesign and the Future

Nowadays company websites are popping up like daisies. But all too often, companies create a website and forget that it costs a lot of money and work to keep it up to date. As a result, the Internet is flooded by outdated and user unfriendly websites. In this post will be taking a closer look at the three most important aspects of a user friendly website and the possible evolutions in web design. Next, I will give some examples of free open-source tools which can help to create and maintain a company’s website.

Factor 1: Navigation / Usability

A good navigation structure is necessary for a website and can even create trust among the visitors. It must replace the lack of physical evidence to create confidence and easiness of use.

The visitors of a webpage do not want to think. If they have difficulties trying to find the needed information, they will leave the site and search for the information elsewhere. No matter how important or useful the information on your website is. (Cyr,  2008)

A user must always be capable of returning to the homepage with maximum three clicks, that is why the use of so called breadcrumbs is highly advised. This will form a track, so the user always knows where he is on the website and how he can go back to previous pages.

It is even more important for design to meet the needs of the customers rather than just be attractive and fun (Nielsen, 2000). In a research conducted by (Pearson & Pearson, 2008) it is stated that personalisation and customisation are becoming major marketing tools in order to build customer relationships. The new BBC-beta website is the ideal example of good practice for the use of a good navigation and personalisation.

Factor 2: Visual Appeal

The term visual design includes colours, photographs, shapes and fonts (Cyr, 2008). When using those graphical elements, it is important that there is uniformity and continuity between de different web pages. Each colour has psychological significance which can add extra value to the web page (Hausman & Siekpe, 2009). Another important aspect within the graphical design is the use of contrast. The text should be very easy to read. A good example is Facebook. Their main colours are blue and white. The psychological connotations for blue are trust and intelligence and the white background makes the text readable as well. (Colour Affects, 2010).

Factor 3: Download Speed

Internet users have set up high standards when it comes to browsing websites. Generally if a site takes more than 3 seconds to load, the users will switch to another website to look for the needed information.

Bearing this in mind is important when engineering a website; one should carefully differentiate between “need to know” and “nice to know” aspects. The designers must thoroughly consider what pictures and movies need to be featured on the webpage. Only put them on if they add value, because otherwise, the download speed of the website will increase and lots of visitors will not have the patience to wait until everything is loaded. (Falk, Sockel, & Chen, 2005)

Future

The basic web usability factors are considered to be implemented in every website, still this is not the case, which is easily proved once we take a closer look on the worldwide web. In the recent future web designers will need to focus more on creating a relevant user experience through their website. With the vast competition in this virtual area one needs to lure their visitors through trust, emotion and persuasion. Web users make their decisions not solely on rational criteria but for a great part on emotions. (Grace,2008)

In the near future, there could be some remarkable innovations. Most of them will help the consumer to experience the company and its products.

Today, social networking websites are more and more integrated in the website’s design. By doing this, companies can show their websites visitors who already became a “fan” on their Facebook-pages. (Hilimire, 2010)

Further on, it is very possible that companies are going to integrate “visual search” instead of the old-fashion search-methods we are using now. With visual search, consumers can first see a product and they can click on it to find more information. Bing.com is currently experimenting with this technology.

Another new technology that may be implemented much more is “augmented reality”. With this innovation, consumers can experience the product without really touching it.

Open Source

Creating and maintaining a website is not cheap, but luckily there are some very handy tools which are free to use. Kompozer for example is a free open-source and easy-to-use web page editing program. Also Drupal and Joomla have already proven their effectiveness as an open source content management system.

For the graphical part, web designers can rely on GIMP or Inkscape. For uploading the files on their server, FileZilla delivers a very good solution.

Companies with less experience in website building can find a solution in blogs like WordPress or Weebly.

Sources

Colour Affects. (2010). Psychological Properties Of Colours. Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Colour affects: http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours

Cyr, D. (2008). Modeling Web Site Design Across Cultures: Relationships to Trust, Satisfaction, and E-Loyality. Journal of Management Information Systems , Vol. 24 No. 4, 47–72.

Falk, L., Sockel, H., & Chen, K. (2005). E-Commerce and Consumer’s Expectations: What Makes a Website Work. Journal of Website Promotion , Vol. 1 (1), 65-75.

Hausman, A. V., & Siekpe, J. S. (2009). The effect of web interface features on consumer online purchase intentions. Journal of Business Research , 5-13.

Hilimire, J. (2010, March 18). Presentation: 8 Digital Trends That Will Change Everything – Revised. Retrieved March 27, 2010, from Jeff Hilimire: http://jeffhilimire.com

Nielsen, J. (2000). Designing Web Usability. Indiana: New Riders Publishing.

Pearson, M., & Pearson, A. (2008, Summer). An exploratory study into determining the relative importance of key criteria in web usability: a multi criteria approach. Journal of Computer Information Systems , 115-127.

Picture: http://normansheppard.com