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Conversion centered design and how it affects the way people beh

Is it worth investing time and money into getting the web design of my website right?

One recent survey showed that on average, people will stay on a single web page for just eleven seconds, which is an incredibly short space of time for you, as a website owner, to grab someone's attention and convince them that your website is worth investigating further. In that length of time it is incredibly difficult to get that message across using written content alone, and so the design of your website becomes absolutely critical to the success of your site.

Another recent survey has suggested that two thirds of people, given a short time to browse a page (11 or so seconds) would rather read something that is well designed that something that is plain. The same survey revealed that 40% of internet users say they will click away from a website if the images are broken or if they take too long to load, while 38% will be turned off from a website if the site is poorly designed or not appealing.

What technologies do you use to design websites?

For functionality, we use php, an open-source, commonly used scripting language that is particularly well suited to web development and that can be inserted into HTML. For Content Managed Websites we use Wordpress, an open source, online website creation tool built in php. We use HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript to develop front-end website interaction, functionality and animation. We use SQL and MYSQL wherever we need a database, and from a design perspective we use the Adobe Creative suite to create for the web.

How do we go about building a website, and what web design is involved?

The process that ends up with a successful, beautifully designed, fully functional, well marketed and promoted usually begins with a great idea. Whether this idea is a product or service, or something to plug a gap in the market, a way of making money or something that entertains people - this idea is the key to making your project a success. You need to have a realistic expectation of what success looks like and a plan of how you're going to get there. You could have the best website in the world, and if your idea is a duffer, it's going to flop.

Once you have this idea and plan, an idea of how you're going to measure success, backed up with a good bit of market research you can think about how you're going to push your idea online. (The internet has become that significant that to not have a website in this day and age is not an option!). That's when Maddison Creative web design Newcastle comes in. We can help you with expert industry knowledge of what works and what doesn't. What can be achieved, and how we can achieve it. What you're going to need, how long it will take and how much it's all going to cost. We will generally then come up with a site structure, with a number of levels, and a flat design/visual/creative. Once these two key elements have been agreed then we set to work putting the two together and voila! You have a website. The hard work doesn't stop there though. Many people think that you build a website, and you can then sit back and watch it work its magic year after year. Unfortunately it's not like that - a website (and its search engine performance) are a living, breathing animal. You have to tend to it, update it, improve it, add to it and love it, otherwise it won't perform to it's maximum and you won't get most from it.

From a practical point of view, you need a domain (an address for your website so people can find it), you need a hosting company to provide you with space on one of their servers (a computer that you can access via the internet) and you need the files you create, nicely arranged into folders. Once you have all these, you attach your domain name to your server, and software that allows you to FTP (File transfer protocol) or upload your files onto your server. Once they're up there then the world can see your site and you're off!

Maddison Creative web design Newcastle can arrange all of this for you - we have great relationships with a number of hosting companies, and we use the latest FTP software, so it's not something you need to worry you - it's included in all new website packages. If you have an existing website and you like to keep the domain name and/or hosting provider, that's not a problem either, we can simply use your existing setup to upload the new site to.

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, what are responsive websites and how is web design affected?

Two out of every three minutes spent online in the UK are users browsing on either a smartphone or a tablet. 13% of adults in the UK browse the internet exclusively using their smartphone, 2% more than browse exclusively on their desktop computer.

In the last two years tablet internet use grew by almost a third, and in the same two year period smartphone use grew by 78%, while desktop internet use has decreased.

The way people use smartphones to access the internet has revolutionized the way websites are built. Long gone are the days that companies were happy to have customers browse their full, desktop version of their site on their smartphone, causing users to zoom in and out of areas of the page that interested them, struggling to click on the tiny text links to navigate. If you're building a website for the modern internet user, the likelihood is that if they don't view your site exclusively on their mobile device, they'll at least check you out via their iPhone or Android phone before sitting down later at their computer to have a more in-depth look.

This is why most clients want a 'mobile-first' approach to their website, whereby you ensure that everything looks and behaves beautifully on a mobile device before considering a desktop version, and if something has to compromise, it certainly won't be the mobile site.

A 'responsive' website is one that adapts to the device it's being viewed on, whether that is a desktop computer, a mobile phone or a tablet. The content is then displayed in a way that is optimized for said device, improving user experience.

Web development and web design - what's the difference?

To build a fully functional, beautifully designed website traditionally requires a web developer and a web designed working together, to cover off all aspects of the design and build. While it is true that a lot of developers are comfortable designing and a lot of designers are comfortable developing the two disciplines are distinctly different:

A web developer is primarily responsible for coding, server-side, in order to allow the website to function. This can include managing the server and the transfer of files and additionally some client-side scripting such as Javascript, but it is predominantly programming.

A web designed on the other hand is responsible for the aesthetics of the site, along with the user-journey and experience. This may also include client-side scripting such as Javascript and HTML, but it is traditionally about the design and layout of the page, imagery, colours, branding and user behaviour.

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