The design of a website is fundamental to its ability to strive profitably in the midst of a competitive marketing environment. While craving for uniqueness, many online organisations have come up with different designs for their websites. Inasmuch as these efforts are commendable, it is obvious that some of these websites repel customers rather than keep them. This is because the elements of a website design determine how it is perceived by customers.
Past studies propose that various website features incorporated into the design of a website contributes to the development of a positive web perception. These features include: navigation, ease of use, quality information, site content, product comparison, interactivity, personalization, experiential nature, ease of ordering, customer satisfaction, media variety, security and external subjective opinions (Lepkowska-White and Eifler 2008). However, the following can be considered as the top three: appearance, content and navigation.
Appearance: A company’s website is often the earliest point of contact for potential customers with company in the growing trend of online activities (Sourcewrite Limited 2009). It must reflect the market positioning of the business and must be consistent through all the pages. For example the same colour, typeface, line colour, logo, etc. The graphics and photos should tell the visitor about the company and its products (Cox and Koelzer 2004). According to McElroy (2006) a company’s website must appear professional and reliable in order to generate consumer confidence. So, the homepage of a website should look interesting and inviting. Having an appealing appearance for a website means it should have good use of colour that will catch a customer’s eye and create a proper mood and tone for the business and also attract visitors to the site often. This can be achieved by making a good use of two colours and their blend, white or open space to separate graphic and text elements, a clearly visible headline, subheads and hyperlinks that offer additional features and smaller graphics for fast downloading (Cox and Koelzer 2004).
Content: Alan and Lambert (2001) say that a website is all about content. If the content of a website is captivating, it will generate traffic to the website. Providing a content that get users to repeat visits to the website helps to build customer loyalty and long term relational exchange between the customer and the business. The information provided must be comprehensible, useful and relevant to the need of the customer. This can be achieved through the use of simple, clear and concise language. Research has shown that quality information in a website encourage customer patronage and gives a positive impression about the website. It engenders trust in the business-customer relationship (Vorvoreanu 2008).
However, care must be taken that the need to provide sufficient information does not lead to an ‘informational overload’ which can discourage prospective customers. The goal is to give enough information that will get customers to patronise the website (Lepkowska-White and Eifler 2008).
Navigation: Navigation is defined by Page and Lepkowska-White (2002:236) as the “scope to which consumers are able to locate desired information at will”. Website navigation determines the amount of content that a user will be exposed to in a given period of time.
A website should be designed in such a way that users are free to move about it in a manner that they cannot miss out on the information provided. A site must, as a consequence, be easy to navigate. According to Davis (2000), a good website must choose “architecture over aesthetics.” In order words, the structure of a website should be practicable, clear, and fluid from the homepage linking to other pages within the site and back to the home page (Huizingh, 2000). A good example of this is Amazon which has a clear homepage and a drop list of navigation tabs that takes you from that homepage to its other pages.
Past studies propose that various website features incorporated into the design of a website contributes to the development of a positive web perception. These features include: navigation, ease of use, quality information, site content, product comparison, interactivity, personalization, experiential nature, ease of ordering, customer satisfaction, media variety, security and external subjective opinions (Lepkowska-White and Eifler 2008). However, the following can be considered as the top three: appearance, content and navigation.
Appearance: A company’s website is often the earliest point of contact for potential customers with company in the growing trend of online activities (Sourcewrite Limited 2009). It must reflect the market positioning of the business and must be consistent through all the pages. For example the same colour, typeface, line colour, logo, etc. The graphics and photos should tell the visitor about the company and its products (Cox and Koelzer 2004). According to McElroy (2006) a company’s website must appear professional and reliable in order to generate consumer confidence. So, the homepage of a website should look interesting and inviting. Having an appealing appearance for a website means it should have good use of colour that will catch a customer’s eye and create a proper mood and tone for the business and also attract visitors to the site often. This can be achieved by making a good use of two colours and their blend, white or open space to separate graphic and text elements, a clearly visible headline, subheads and hyperlinks that offer additional features and smaller graphics for fast downloading (Cox and Koelzer 2004).
Content: Alan and Lambert (2001) say that a website is all about content. If the content of a website is captivating, it will generate traffic to the website. Providing a content that get users to repeat visits to the website helps to build customer loyalty and long term relational exchange between the customer and the business. The information provided must be comprehensible, useful and relevant to the need of the customer. This can be achieved through the use of simple, clear and concise language. Research has shown that quality information in a website encourage customer patronage and gives a positive impression about the website. It engenders trust in the business-customer relationship (Vorvoreanu 2008).
However, care must be taken that the need to provide sufficient information does not lead to an ‘informational overload’ which can discourage prospective customers. The goal is to give enough information that will get customers to patronise the website (Lepkowska-White and Eifler 2008).
Navigation: Navigation is defined by Page and Lepkowska-White (2002:236) as the “scope to which consumers are able to locate desired information at will”. Website navigation determines the amount of content that a user will be exposed to in a given period of time.
A website should be designed in such a way that users are free to move about it in a manner that they cannot miss out on the information provided. A site must, as a consequence, be easy to navigate. According to Davis (2000), a good website must choose “architecture over aesthetics.” In order words, the structure of a website should be practicable, clear, and fluid from the homepage linking to other pages within the site and back to the home page (Huizingh, 2000). A good example of this is Amazon which has a clear homepage and a drop list of navigation tabs that takes you from that homepage to its other pages.
If users do not understand the interface of a website, they are likely to form negative perceptions about the site and therefore not patronize it. If they get lost on the website, they may leave and never come back (Ash and Lambert 2001; Nielsen 2004).
Gordijk (2010) posits that consumers ask three basic questions when they first get on a website:
• What is this website about?
• What can I see or do here?
• How do I go about doing it?
If a website fails to answer these three questions adequately from its homepage down to its other features and pages, then the website has fallen short of its intended purpose.
The Way Forward...
Fortunately, free tools on website design abound on the internet, so there is no justification for a crappy website! For example, good fonts can be gotten from a website like beautifulfonts. One can get free colours at colortools.net. There are free clip arts at free-clipart-pictures.net and free templates at freewebsitetemplates.com. There are free graphics at freegraphics.com and free search engines at freefind.com. And also a website as Bravenet offers these tools on a single platform.
If these tools are utilised properly, the appearance, content and navigation of a website can appeal visually to a visitor and give it a competitive advantage over others. But, websites should not be overloaded with graphics, photographs, complex design or irrelevant sound or content. It will only keep customers away.
References:
Ash, B. and Tom, L. (2001) E-marketing Dominance: How to use the Internet to win and keep Customers. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company
Cox, B. G. and Koelzer, W. (2004) Internet Marketing. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc
Davis, J. (2000) A Guide to Web Marketing: Successful Promotion on the Net. London: Kogan Page Ltd
Gordijk, N. (2010) ‘The Importance of Navigation in Website Design’ Inforserve Media [online] available from
http://www.infoservemedia.com/support/articles/web_design_navigation.html [28 March 2010]
Huizingh, E. K. R. E. (2000) ‘The Content and Design of Web Sites: An Empirical Study.’ Information and Management 37(3), 123–134
Lepkowska- White, E. and Eifler, A. (2008) ‘Spinning the Web: The Interplay of Web Design Features and Product Types’. Journal of Website Promotion 3(3/4), 196-212
McElroy, C. (2006) ‘How Important is Website Design?’ Selfseo [online] available from http://www.selfseo.com/story-18143.php [28 March 2010]
Nielsen, J. (2003) ‘Usability 101: Introduction to Usability’ Useit [online] available from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html [28 March 2010]
Page, C. and Lepkowska-White, E. (2002) ‘Web equity: A framework for building consumer value in online companies.’ Journal of Consumer Marketing 19 (3), 231–246
Sourcewrite (2009) Website design and Development [online] available from http://www.sourcewrite.co.uk/webdesign.aspx [28 March 2010]
Vorvoreanu, M. (2008) ‘Website Experience Analysis: A New Research protocol for Studying Relationship Building on corporate Websites’. Journal of Website Promotion 3(3/4), 222-249
