Many elements affect a website’s performance, and we could easily spend many hours discussing what is essential for modern web design. But ultimately, the crucial thing is an experience for everyone who visits your site. While we can analyze their experience in detail and then analyze it thoroughly, the essence of it boils down to two factors: aesthetics and performance.
Both aesthetics and performance both are essential to your site’s performance, but it is the case that they’re usually in conflict with one another. Users want websites that are easy to navigate, match their aesthetic requirements, and run without issues. However, when trying to satisfy the expectations of their users, companies typically fail to find the right balance between form and functionality.
What’s more, not focusing enough on the elements of design that people appreciate can seriously harm the performance of your website. On the other hand, keeping your focus on functionality and usability will create a dull, uninteresting website that frustrates visitors when they arrive.
Is the ideal combination of performance and aesthetics an elusive unicorn, or does it exist? The great news is that you can draw attention to the aesthetic nature of your site’s visitors and still provide the highest level of usability. Here’s what you should know when striking the right perfect balance.
Simplify to Optimize
We’ve all been to one of “those” sites. Websites e overloaded with animated graphics and graphic elements slow thsite’s performancete and load speed down to a crawl. From an economic perspective, it’s clear why they believed this could work. The public loves visual stimulation, and it’s likely that the more you can pack into your presentation, the more appealing it is to those who visit.
The problem is that speed is crucial, and adding excessive animations and huge images could bog down your website to the point where it’s unusable, meaning that the work you put into your site is wasted. If you believe that having the appearance of a beautiful, visually heavy website has more importance than user-friendliness, take a moment to consider every second your site requires to load takes away 7 percent of your conversions; if your site hasn’t completed loading in three seconds, you’ve dropped half of your users to bounce.
It’s also essential to consider the development of websites from an SEO viewpoint. For instance, slow-loading websites have significant bounce rates and may conflict with many of Google’s ranking factors. In addition, your overloaded website is putting off customers, but it could also prevent potential customers from coming across your site initially.
If you’ve checked your loading speed and it’s at the 2-second mark or more, then it’s time to look over the situation and determine the extent to which your efforts at creating visually appealing websites are the reason. It doesn’t mean you should go back to dull, but instead, concentrate on sprucing things up and applying an updated design and compelling visuals.
It Needs to Be Easy
There’s a fact regardless of whether you’re aware or not; you’re facing plenty of competition in the online world. The success of today isn’t only measured by the number of people you’re able to attract to your website and also by the ability of your site to guide your customers throughout the journey. Your website’s design plays a crucial part in this.
Consider how many people are coming from different locations. One person may have never heard of your company but clicked through an article posted via social media. Another person came across your site via organic search, and another has visited your website several times before deciding to make m purchase. Your website design should be easy enough to simultaneously accommodate all your customers’ specific needs.
This is about reducing the noise and clutter that makes your website difficult to navigate or reconsidering the design of your site that isn’t easy to use. Review your site and consider whether the menus are simple to locate and navigate or if visitors can answer their queries without navigating through hundreds of pages. Look at your website from the perspective of your visitors and consider whether any visual aspects of your site’s design may be obstacles between your company and the customers who want to purchase.