If you run a business in this day and age, then you already know that it’s essential to have an online presence. Your website acts as an always-open storefront, working 24/7 to encourage sales and enquiries about your products and / or services.
You’ll almost certainly have spent considerable time and money on making sure that your site perfectly represents your business. Site visitors like to know about the brands they engage with online, so you’ll have included contact details, information about you and your business, and details of the goods you supply. But have you ever stopped to consider what your website is really communicating to your potential customers?
What is communication design?
Everyone knows about graphic designers, who create images and illustrations to add extra interest to a website. But not everyone realises the significance of design elements in a site. Of course, you’ll almost certainly spend time with your site designers discussing the best colours to select, as well as deciding on which fonts to use. But are you fully aware of the implications of the colours, fonts and layout of your new website?
Truly excellent web design uses colours, fonts, imagery and content to really get your message across to your audience. But it’s so subtle that most of your site visitors will never realise just how they are being guided by various design elements. Ideally, the design should be so seamless that the site visitor can navigate through your site with complete ease, without suspecting that they are being encouraged on their purchasing journey by built-in design features.
How communication design works?
A visitor to your business website doesn’t want to waste even a moment of their time trying to figure out how to get to the pages they want to view. Searching around for menus and buttons won’t encourage them to stick around, so every aspect of their online journey needs to be completely intuitive.
You’ve probably heard of UI and UX. Short for User Interface and User Experience, these disciplines are designed to encourage a seamless journey through a website. Website visitors shouldn’t feel they have to work to find their way around a site. So clear buttons, text that appears when you hover a design element, and clearly signposted clickable links should be included as a matter of course.
It takes years of experience to build a working knowledge as to the way in which communication design can influence the behaviour of online website visitors. And every website is different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all design solution. But one thing is for certain – you want your website to be the best that it can be. And that means it needs to offer your site visitors a superior experience, compared to your competitors. So when you’re looking for web design in Toronto, make sure you choose a company that understands the benefits of communication design.
