Popular Misconceptions about Web Design

Businesses are more and more becoming more dependent on an online presence, so the pressure to have a successful website is very high. However, some entrepreneurs have misguided notions about how web design and development should work. This post explores some common beliefs among non-tech-savvy businesspeople about web design. It’ll address aspects like micro-managing instead of trusting your developer and assuming that hiring a web developer will make a website viral. It’ll also discuss how to address these misconceptions.

Web Design Is Easy

This is one of the most common and harmful misconceptions floating around. It is clearly not "easy". It is true that anyone can build a very basic site, but not everyone can do it well. A beautiful website that looks effortless and is easy to use did not get that way without a great amount of hard work. Since responsive design has become a standard, building a website takes at least twice as long as it did when the site held a static width. Responsive websites use complicated programming to resize and reposition all of the page elements to fit any screen size. Changing the position of an element(s) in the header or navigation is far more complicated than just moving it a few pixels. It must be coded to render properly on many different screen sizes and devices to ensure the best user experience, aesthetics and usability. Each button and feature on a website takes hours of coding. Graphics take a lot of research, and many are made from scratch. You truly get what you pay forwhen it comes to web design and development. There will be many people and businesses that will boast low hourly pricing, but deliver poor quality websites that will do the opposite of what your goal is. In the end, if potential customers are passing over your products or services because of a low quality website, you just wasted all of that money.

WEB DESIGN IS ABOUT MAKING A SITE PRETTY

Of course, good design does include making a site attractive, but there’s so much more to web design than that. More important issues in web design include:

How well the site functions — How well does the site content flow from page to page, and can your customers find what they’re looking for?

Valid, well-written code — This prevents error messages and other problems.

2. The "fold" / user’s don’t scroll down

We come across this misconception often, so let’s dispel this one quickly. Users WILL scroll down to view your content. There is some debate as to whether "the fold" is relevant in web design. We think that the most important information, including calls-to-action, should go near the top of the website, i.e. "above the fold," when possible. However that doesn’t mean that visitors won’t scroll down nor that the rest of the content will go unnoticed.

My Designer Should Respond Immediately to Every Request

Many web designers chose their careers because they have a passion for web design, but also because they get to work on their own time. Everyone works differently, and some creatives aren’t productive at 9 to 5 office jobs. This should be understood when working with a design team.

A good designer should tell you up front what his or her particular work schedule is like. If your design team is more productive at night, don’t expect an 8 a.m. email to be answered immediately. If a designer doesn’t work on Sundays, wait until Monday to ask for the changes you’ve been wanting. Just like you want your time respected, your design team wants its respected, as well. Make sure to ask about everyone’s hours before the project begins so you know the best time to ask for changes and when you can expect an update or response.

Source: WordPress websites Tampa / Mayson Blog