Don’t over complicate your website. Simple is often best

A simple web design proves to be far more beneficial than a complicated website

A recent Google research study revealed that users judge websites as being beautiful in less than 1/20th of a second. More importantly, the study also revealed that visually complicated websites were rated less beautiful than simple websites. This essentially goes to show that users prefer simplicity in web design and are more likely to be attracted to a website which is not cluttered and is simple to navigate. As a business owner, this has some important implications – you must look to keep your website design simple to be better appreciated by, and effective to, your target audience.

Simplicity in web design can do a great deal for your business. When I design websites, my goal is to keep them as simple as possible and I follow this philosophy in every website that I design. As the director of Ignition Media, I urge all my clients to adapt to the “less is more” approach, as this brings about various benefits. In this article, I will explain why a simple web design is in your best interest.

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Some advantages that simple websites offer

Websites that feature a simple web design prove to be far more effective than complicated websites. Here, I’d like to point out that simplicity of design does not mean a minimalistic design. A website with a simple design is one that appeals to the visual aesthetic and is not overcomplicated with unnecessary elements. Let’s first take a look as to why this is advantageous.

  • Simple websites are much easier to navigate through and maintain. Without unnecessary information included, simpler web designs have fewer pages and fewer sections, with all content well laid out for the user to find.
  • Simple websites load much faster than complicated websites. A simpler web design means that file sizes are smaller and this results in faster loading and faster response times. Simple websites also occupy less server space. This improves user experience dramatically.
  • Simple websites can be scanned much better by visitors. If you include too many decorative elements in your website, your content gets pushed to the background. Your content should always be on the foreground, where it can be scanned more easily by visitors and robots.
  • It is easier to design and build a simple website. By writing simpler code for your site and by making use of simple typography and templates, you’ll be done with designing, building and deploying your site in no time.
  • Simple websites are easier to debug. During the build process, you will definitely have to deal with debugging and with simpler code you’re going to find it much easier to figure out what isn’t working.

Ignition Media has been providing web design services to Gold Coast businesses for more than a decade and one thing that I’ve learnt over the years is that websites need to be kept as simple as possible to achieve the best results.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways we go about creating simple web design.

How to go about simplifying your websites

Stick to a simple design

If you’re considering building a new website, you should stick to a simple web design. Even if you have an existing website, you should consider simplifying it as far as possible. First of all, you should remember that too many decorative elements will only clutter your design. Decorative elements are only meant to serve a visual appeal; keeping your elements simple will make your site appear more polished and much cleaner.

Remove excessive decorative elements (It’s not the 90’s!).

Before you go about getting rid of decorative elements, ask yourself which elements are really important. Some examples of unnecessary decorative elements that you can get rid of include drop shadows, image borders and backgrounds, extra illustrative elements on pages and extra images in the header and footer. I also highly recommend that you combine your styles into a single stylesheet; this will help keep your resources neat and increase your page load time.

Have clean code and a good CMS

Your website’s backend should be as simple as the frontend. Many seemingly simple looking sites have complicated code in the backend and this should be avoided at all costs. Mark-up should be well written and compliant to standards. You should also choose an appropriate CMS for your website. An appropriate CMS is one which offers you only with the functionality that you need, or one which allows you to switch functionality on and off as required. A good example is WordPress , which is my preferred CMS.

Benchmark your website

Make sure you check to see whether your website fits the expectations of the end user in regards to speed, aesthetics and pricing. This can be done by researching your target audience and comparing your website with the sites they visit the most.

At Ignition Media, we always work towards creating simple web design for all clients. We understand that simple websites are more effective to the end user, and this means better conversions and more sales for our clients.

Conclusion:

Whether you’re building a new website for your business or you have an existing website, it’s important to ensure that it has a simple web design. Simple web designs present great benefits including better conversions for your business.

If you need help simplifying your website or you would like a new website built, get in touch with our experts at Ignition Media. We will provide you a simple looking, yet highly functional and robust website.

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