The first thing you need to ask yourself is “why your website needs to be redesigned”? Is it to generate more leads, higher search engine rankings or a better modern look and feel? Secondly you need to think of what needs to be redesigned. For example, maybe the content on your website is outdated or some element needs to be replaced such as the coding of your website. Invest time to go through your website to identify which elements are working and which ones are not.

It is very important to analyse and keep in mind how users are currently interacting with your site as well as the latest market trends. This will also enable you to identify great content and problem areas. If you implement Google Analytics, you can have access to statistics such as how many visitors your website gets sales conversions and search engine keywords mostly used for your products/services. You can also have a look at your screen resolution and browser usage; make sure your website loads quickly and correctly on all browsers.

In Today’s fast paced, ever changing world, companies change their Corporate Identity (CI) to tap into the right market, just remember that if you change your company’s corporate identity then ensure the changes are reflected on your website too, as your website is the face of your company. User make a decision about your company based on your website, so make sure it’s incredible enough to make a lasting impression.

Happy designing!

Usability refers to the ease of use and learnability with which a human interacts with an object. Usability in the context of Information Technology generally falls within the academic field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).. In the field of web design, usability and interaction design is just as important as the visual design itself. Your website can be aesthetically beautiful, but if users find it difficult to interact with, you have a big problem.

There are a number of components that tie in with usability and I shall briefly discuss a few of them here. Interaction with any device should be a designed process. The interface for interaction should be easy to use and user friendly. An interface should also be designed to be intuitive. Users should be able to know what to do automatically, without having to think about it. The user should therefore not feel frustrated.

If new actions have to be learnt, these should be easy to remember. This brings us to another point, learnability. A highly learnable interface is one in which users automatically know what to do after they have performed the required actions a few times.

Ultimately, the user should be considered during every single phase of design and implementation. The target audience, user cognition, and affective aspects play an extremely important role. The affective aspects involved when a user interacts with any type of interface includes the user’s emotional reactions, biases and other psychological traits.

A couple of ways in which to improve the usability of your site (or device, software or anything else you can think of that humans will interact with) are the following:

- Follow standards and conventions. These conventions are in some cases quite obvious (don’t put light text on a light background or make sure buttons look like buttons), however there are certain conventions that have just sort of evolved over time. They are “tried and tested” ways of doing this and are there for a reason. The point is that these standards are known by users and users will look for them.  It might be tempting to explore radically new ideas, but if you are not sure your idea will work, it might be better not to implement it.

- Conduct Usability tests. If you want your website to be usable, learnable and user friendly it is crucial that you conduct usability tests. These tests can be done with a small amount of people and with limited equipment. The important thing is that you do this continuously at various stages of development ( and pre development). Get a couple of people to use your website and monitor them, record their screen actions and listen to their feedback. You will most certainly pick up errors. And because you are conducting usability tests early on in the process, you will have time for improvement.

- Analyse the data. Analyse and interpret the data obtained from the usability test. See where improvement is necessary and share the results with your staff.

The field of HCI is quite large and it would benefit any individual who is involved with the design, implementation and planning of any interface to read a book or two on the subject. I can recommend Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, this is an excellent book which covers almost everything you need to know. If you want to save a bit of time though, pick up the book ‘Don’t make me think’ by Steve Krug.

Making sure your website reflects your brand

Your logo

A Company logo serves as the cornerstone for your brand and can be found everywhere (ads, proposals, invoices business cards and on websites to mention a few). It usually forms your customer’s first impression so one should make sure you project the correct image. A smart (well thought out) creative unique logo differentiates you from your competitors. I suggest that your company’s logo be designed by a professional design agency.

On your website the logo positioning and size should be of such manner that it is one of the easiest elements on the page to spot. Research has shown that generally web users look at the top left corner of a website first (within the website pane) so in my opinion it is probably the best place to put your logo.

Colour

Your website colours should be consistent with the theme of your existing marketing materials such as business cards. Your logo should also blend in to your design.

Colours have been known to stimulate various emotional responses and can be associated with various things e.g. blue symbolizes quietness, serenity, truth, dignity, constancy, reliability and power where green symbolizes nature, fresh, vegetation and health.

Choosing a colour to represent your brand is vital for the goals you want to achieve with your company.

(Just note that different cultures associate different colours to different things)

Consistency

People remember things that they are repeatedly exposed to easier. You should be consistent throughout your website when it comes to colours, visuals and fonts (typography) which forms a uniform image to the visitors of your website and so your company image.

Characters and other marketing materials

Many companies have characters that represent their company image e.g. Vodacom with their meerkat. The meerkat is seen on many of their marketing efforts including their TV campaigns. Integrating your character or other marketing materials in your website will help people identify your company.

Your design

One of the most common mistakes made is in the design of your website. Users can easily be put-off by the lack of good design and development which will result in a high bounce rate. If a design contains too many images the webpage will take a very long time to load and might result in users clicking on the back button of their internet browser to find better results somewhere else. This however doesn’t mean you have to banish images entirely. If you decide to use images they should be web optimized and designed correctly according to internet standards to optimize the loading speed of your web pages.

Forms

In many cases a website’s goal is to get the visitor to submit a form either to register, fill in a contact me request or to submit information for an e-quote. Users don’t like lengthy hard to understand forms as they don’t want to spend too much time on them. Forms should be easy to understand and should not consume too much time to complete.

Call to action

People that visit your website do not want to spend hours looking for information that they want thus your call to action should be clear for users to easily read and understand. Many times users land on a website and they do not know where to go from there to find the information they want. This causes users to leave your website and continue on to find a website that is more organized and easy to understand.

Website copy

Copy according to me is probably the most important factor of your website. It doesn’t only play a role in optimizing your website for search engines but also explains what your website and so your business is all about. Poorly written copy, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors will portray your company as unprofessional or in some cases cause a visitor to immediately leave your website

Finally – I want to stress how important the little things are on your website. Pay attention to detail even if you think it’s not that important because someone else visiting your website might think: “they should have paid attention to that” or “that looks wrong”. Little mistakes are often the reason why visitors to your website do not reach the goals you have set up.