A new website design can always be an exciting project to look forward to as a website owner, especially if you are planning to improve your user experience; not only from the perspective of freshening things up, but also with respect to improving the overall user journey. A good website design, can help to build a trustworthy and a more modern image of your website.
However, most of the times it is not necessary to develop a completely new web design. Minor design tweaks here and there could help in uplifting or enhancing the overall user experience. A new website design can also translate into several different outcomes or enable a website owner to achieve considerable results in terms of website performance. So in the end, it all boils down to what one wants to achieve out of the new design.
1. A new website design needs to have a purpose
Very few designers will bring this up when they are planning for a new website design. Before you move forward with that thought, you have to answer several questions:
- Why do you want a new design for your website?
- What do you want to achieve?
- What are the objectives?
- Are your users comfortable with some current features of your website?
- Do you require a completely new design, or minor changes to enhance the user experience?
- Can the current design be enhanced instead?
- Is your current website design stale and old fashioned?
Before you even think to create your new design, make sure you are very clear in what you want out of this tedious job. Also, keep in mind that redesigning the website may also result in some down time that may end up a loss of visitors/customers.
2. A new design requires time, skills and effort
If you are a designer yourself, you have the skills, you’d require to put in the time and effort behind your new website design. If you don’t know anything about web development, then you’d need to outsource it to someone, which means costs. Consider and plan out everything before you decide to finally go ahead with revamping your website.
3. Stay prepared to bug hunt for weeks!
A new web design means there will be a lot of on going bug hunting, from compatibility problems to coding. Stay prepared to bug hunt from major to minor tweaks, and make sure to test the new design out on several browsers.
4. Make sure your loyal visitors are not put off by the new redesign
There is a chance that your new website design is not well received by many of your loyalists. The ideal way to move forward is to conduct a survey with your visitors, and ensure that the features loved by your audience in the current design are incorporated in the new experience.
5. Navigation should be the top priority
Navigation determines user experience on a website, and it is of vital importance to any website or web application. Is there a way you can improve the navigation on your website? How will the user interact with your content? Is it user friendly? These are some of the questions you must consider when planning for a new design.
6. It’s about time that you should have a responsive website design
With tablet and smartphone penetration on the rise globally, and people accessing data on their phones through WIFI or mobile operators, chances are that a good percentage of your visitors are coming to your website through a mobile device. In this case, you may want to have a responsive website.
Remember, that making your existing website response is going to take a lot more effort than the one you are creating from scratch. If you are on WordPress, why not get a responsive theme from thousands of WordPress themes available.
7. Can you make the website more efficient?
Efficient websites have lower bounce rates and higher dwell times. When planning your new web design, keep in mind the efficiency parameters. Ensure that your page load times, site speed, internal linking, etc. all build up to delivering an excellent user experience as well as help you rank for search engine results. The search engine is your friend if you’re looking to build long term authority based on high quality content through your website.
