Websites with a lot of pages and design elements can be confusing, making navigation difficult for the users. In contrast, a simple and sleek design can help with achieving goals with better efficiency in terms of lead generation, engagement and of course, sales.
Designing a simple website is far from being a daunting ordeal. By taking a few small steps, you can easily simplify the design of your website. Simple exercises like putting more attention on the essential elements of the website, limiting usage of colors and getting more content above the fold can be quite helpful.
Here are a few tips to simplify the design of your website.
Make a Website Plan
Formulating a website plan before designing it will help you a lot. You can begin with a website plan that outlines the different goals you have for your website and the ways you can assign the webpages for achieving these goals. You can plan the outline that points or funnel potential leads to a given page where he or she is invited to perform a given action.
Remember the 80 – 20 Rule
Clutter free interface is prime to minimalist websites. One of the best ways to create a website with little or no clutter is by remembering the Pareto principle. This is also known as the “80-20 rule”.
You can put this rule into practice by rethinking about the aspects you should include in the design. Firstly, get rid of all the elements on web design that do not drive the potential customers to sales funnel/desired outcome/call to action. This includes getting rid of lengthy text, unnecessary or ugly looking buttons, and text boxes and arrows that occupy the white space but does nothing to add to the functionality of the website.
The thinking behind this approach is that just 20% of the design choices will cast an impact on the desired outcome of your website that is more conversions, sales, subscriptions, etc. If you strip down design to barest necessities, you ensure that everything included in the design is making a big impact.
Focus Only on the Necessary Elements
This might appear to be a simple task, but most websites fail in achieving this. The result is usually a mess of both the significant and the insignificant elements on the page. It is hard to be objective, giving emphasis on what is significant and what is not since everything appears to be necessary. Nonetheless, it is crucial to find out the things that need to be focused. This will help you to keep the design simple.
Lessen the Number of Pages
Lesser number of pages of a website makes things simpler. You can consider trimming down the page count by eliminating or blending them totally if they don’t add value. With lesser number of pages, the visitors find it easy to focus on the content. Lesser are places to explore, fewer are the navigational menus and better are the conversion rate.
Get More Content above Fold
Studies indicate that a significant section of individuals invests most of their time above the fold on website pages. To build viability of your website, get the principal content and the vital call to actions above the fold. You can do something basic here; shorten the header tallness if you have a logo and navigation menu on top of your website. Call to actions like ‘download’, ‘signup’ or ‘buy’ acquires value for most websites. Consider diminishing the work to get to it.
Reduce Secondary Content
Opt for minimalism. According to Hick’s Law, more options lead to more cognitive stress as well as more competition for the attention of users. Fewer options ensure less stress. There is a higher likelihood that the users will choose actions you want them to as well.
No doubt secondary content like external ads, widgets, and the sidebar tools are helpful, but the problem that lies here is that they water down main content. To draw more attention towards primary content, consider trimming down secondary content.
Anticipate Scanning of Details
More options not just strain the users but they also encourage the users to skim content and pay less attention. If your website is content heavy, understand that the users are not reading line by line. You can use the ‘F pattern’ if you want to embed calls to action or advertising without distracting from the content. Remember that this is just a guideline. F pattern may look boring after the top rows of ’F’.
Limit the Color Scheme
It’s easy to get carried away with colors. Most of you wonder why settle on two or three colors when it is possible to use 12 or 13 of them? To simplify your design visually, limit the color scheme. Though this depends upon the design of your website, it’s better to stick to using just two or three colors. If you need more texture and subtlety to your design, you can try using shades of the same color. After you simplify the design of your website and then use so many colors that distract eyes rather than complementing content, it’s as good as nullifying all the effort. Use fewer colors to remain on the safe side.
You are now armed with all essential points to simplify the design of your website. Now, you will be prouder to show your website since it looks appealing and ensures a significantly more enjoyable experience browsing your website.
Image Courtesy: acodez
