Imagine this: you are a customer who is searching for a very specific product but when you enter a store you have nowhere to find your product, there is little to no signage telling you where to go to find it, and there are no employees to help you figure out where to go to even begin. It is probably assumed that you would get frustrated and leave that store to find a store that would better help you locate what it is you were looking for, right?
The concept of great website design is to design from the outside in. Contrary to what most believe, great website design is not defined by the color scheme, by the graphics, or even by the bells and whistles and incredible add-ons. Great website design is defined by the ease of navigability by the customer. If one accessing your website is completely entertained but unable to find what they are looking for (or what your business is selling), then your online business is suffering at the expense of captivation and entertainment.
The best strategy would be to find a well-balanced middle ground for your website design. Create a design that is appealing to your online clientele, but one that has overall functionality so your consumer is finding what they need, and you are profiting. It must be a win-win!
Let your website do the thinking for your customer! The most effective website designs are ones which pave the way for consumers to end in a sale or in a distinct action (enrolling in services, email, etc.). Thus, in your own design, creating a “digital salesperson” of sorts (through your design), you maintain full authority over where you lead your customer to go. “But how?” you ask?
In engineering a successful website design, you must act as the customer. What would you be looking for on the home page if you were trying to contact a business, if you are trying to pay a bill? Where would you look? Asking critical questions in the website design process is crucial to the design’s overall affect. Asking the questions to yourself as the customer and placing yourself in their position beforehand makes for mindful, creative, and easily navigable designs that will enable your customers to impact your business in a positive way: profit!