The Importance of Good Web Design
Josh Craddock
I can’t help it. Honestly, I can’t. I’ve come across countless website that are just sad. Images don’t load; menus don’t work; the website looks like its from the early nineties. Some people ask why those things matter. “As long as the phone number’s visible, they can call to find out the information they need.” While this may be true, there is also something else extremely important being overlooked. Your website is your business’s image. If your website doesn’t work, then how well does your business work? If your website looks dated, then how current and relavant is your business in this technology-savy age. Your website is one of the most important tools you can have now days. Its available 24/7, 365 days of the year. Even when your business is closed, your website is open for business. And, its available to a vast majority of the public. There are over 1.4 billion internet users world-wide (as of June 30, 2008), a 305.5% increase in the past eight years. These days, you are behind the times, if you don’t have a website.
One of the main issues I see with websites these days, is that they have been designed only to work with one particular browser. In the past years, Internet Explorer (IE) was the main browser used. You were the vast minority if you were using anything else. Now days, things have changed. 54.0% of Internet users are using Internet Explorer. 41% are using Firefox. And the rest are using browsers such as Safari, Gecko, Netscape, Konqueror, and Opera. And, these do not even include mobile phone browsers. The problem is that browsers all render things differently. What may look and work great in one browser, may look and work terribly in another browser due to rendering differences. With the introduction of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), web designers can now associate different style sheets with different browsers. This does wonders to a website. You can now design a site so that it will look and work almost identical in all major browsers.
The lack of cross-browser programming is, of course, only one of the problems. Another major problem is the frequency at which websites are being updated. The web is a relatively young technology. It is still evolving. The way pages are created is changing. And certain design concepts and trends are changing. What looks good one year, may look old and dated the next year. In order to look new, exciting, and fresh, a website needs to be reevaluated and possibly redesigned and restructured periodically.
Your website is your image. Invest in it. Take pride in it. Keep it up-to-date and keep up with the trends. Fading fast are the days of phone books and 411. The web is often the first place users go to learn about a business. Your website is often a users first impression of you and your business. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Don’t you want your business to give an amazing first impression? Then, why not take the time and invest into a great website? The return on your investment is often ten-fold. That, to me, is the importance of good web design.
Josh Craddock
Owner
Mountaintop Multimedia Creations
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