What Is Web Design?
Web design encompasses many different facets of website creation. It incorporates how your site looks with its interface, navigation, and how visitors interact with your site. To distill this definition down further, web design is how a visitor feels while using your site.
While web design includes visual elements, like colors, typography, spacing, images, and icons, it also includes functional elements like page layout, navigation menus, responsiveness, and cross-device compatibility. Web design plays a vital role in how users perceive your site and how they use it. The purpose of web design is to make your site easier to use and take key actions on, while CRO is the process of implementing ways to encourage users to take key actions more often.
A good site design can impact everything from conversion rates to SEO, and a poor or outdated design can lead to lost sales and leads.
Why Design?
Does Your
Site Need A
Design Update?
Is your current design or template restricting your future goals?
Are you rebranding your business or changing your brand’s story?
Do you need to provide flexibility across devices for your users?
There’s no denying that we live in a highly competitive, rapidly evolving world. The digital landscape changes quickly, and the technology that was new and exciting last year soon becomes old and antiquated by the next year. The same is true for web design. Best practices and user expectations change fast, and it’s important to keep up or you risk losing leads, sales, and customers to competitors. It can be hard to tell exactly when your website needs a design update, but a few general clues include:
These are only a few common reasons why businesses come to us for an update of their site’s design. You might find your page speeds are suffering, your site’s technology is outdated, or your target audience has changed. These reasons and more are all indications that your site needs a redesign. The design team at WTM can work with you to identify where your site needs improvement, and how we can help.
How Often Does a Website Need A Design Update?
On average, a website shouldn’t go longer than 5 years without an update. The reason for this is that the generally expected user experience is constantly changing. An experience that was once considered standard several years ago can quickly become outdated.
It’s also important to remain on top of user trends. For example, over the past five years, mobile device website traffic has increased steadily. As of 2020, around 51% of website traffic comes from users on their mobile devices.
A website that is designed with the mobile user in mind is a must-have, particularly for e-commerce sites. According to research conducted by Adobe, 38% of online shoppers will leave a website if they find the design to be unattractive. That adds up to a potentially huge loss of sales for e-commerce websites that aren’t mobile-friendly.
What Our Web Designers Can Do
Whether your site is built on CMS platforms like WordPress, Shopify, or BigCommerce, our team has the expertise to provide a range of web design services, such as:
Ensuring your site is ADA compliant
Implementing mobile-first responsive design
Optimizing navigation menus
Creating clear user flows
Planning page layouts & mockups
Updating visual elements & typography
We work with you to address any current issues and future-proof your site for the latest design and user experience trends.
WTM’s Web Design Process
At WTM, we work closely with you to better understand your brand, learn the vision for your website, and identify the needs of your users. After our initial discovery phase, we employ a step-by-step design process:
Step 1
Before any designs are made, we analyze your current site and create a sitemap that lays out the page order for your new site. This helps us to identify what’s working and what isn’t, and learn more about your brand and users.
Step 2
Using data, we identify how current site visitors use your site and their frustrations.
Step 3
We then research target audiences your site is not currently serving and strategies on how to service them.
Step 4
From our research, we work with you to establish user personas, which help to guide design decisions on your site.
Step 5
After we’ve identified pain points on your site, identified both existing and new audiences, and created user personas, we wireframe all necessary pages based on the discovery work.
Step 6
After wireframes are completed and approved by your team, we design all pages.
We believe an effective website design requires trust and open communication. Our account and project managers will work closely with you each step of the way to ensure the right audiences are considered, user experience needs are being met, and your site delivers on your brand’s goals.
How Much Does It CostTo Design a Website?
A new website can cost anywhere from $12,000 to more than $100,000. The cost for your site will vary based on a number of factors including:
The size and scope of your website
The level of customization your site requires
The design and creation of unique assets, like images and icons
If you’d like to talk about how WTM Digital can help with your next web design or UX project, get in touch with our team today.