| By :
John Markus
From print materials to websites, billboards to store layout, design principles play a big part in conveying the proper image for a business. The best analogy I've heard is the high-end bridal shop versus the dollar store. One displays a few high-quality items with plenty of floor space and breathing room, while the other stuffs every last inch of the store with cheap junk 'on sale!' The same principle applies to website design, and trust me, your visitors can feel the difference. What I find is that business owners are not confident enough to keep things minimal - they want to pack all the available real estate in an attempt to impress visitors. The truth is, a well-designed, lean & mean site layout will have a more powerful message. Your Website is a Sales Tool - Don't Be Too Pushy! Even a non-designer can tell a well-designed layout from a poorly designed one. It's not just color choices, font selection, or Photoshop work that produce great designs. It's also deciding which elements are truly necessary and which can be safely left out. This, of course is the part business owners have trouble with. The goal is to provide the visitor with enough information to make a buying decision, which makes the sale. The temptation is to throw every single option at the visitor at once, which only confuses them. On a deeper level, it lowers the trust level. People know when they are being pandered to. If your site's sales effort comes across as 'pushy', you may scare away more visitors than you attract. We All Have Design Instincts Some of the best examples of lean & clean design are Apple, Gucci, IWC Watches, and Nike. Sure, they are already established as brands, but they leverage that brand strength in their confident and stark designs. The product speaks for itself - and this is an important aspect. Even if a visitor has never heard of your brand, presenting a clean, well-designed site will give the impression that your brand is well-established. Having the confidence to present your brand minimally has a strong psychological effect. We are all assaulted daily with advertising and marketing, so our senses are sharp. We know good design and are affected by it, whether we know it or not. Great Website, Great Brand With the internet being most consumer's first stop for all things purchased, it is crucial that your website reflects well on the products or services offered. Think of how many sales are lost every day due to poorly-designed sites. It doesn't take much to lose a potential customer, either from frustration with the site's functionality or disorganized content. A great brand should have a great website, as today's consumer can be easily spooked by a poor experience. Bad design will send them away faster than you can search for a new web developer! Pretty Up Front, All Business In the Back Just like Apple and Nike, you can harness the power of a minimal design approach where appropriate. By this I mean keep the home page of your site nice and clean, with just enough info and graphics to look amazing, but let the visitor dig deeper and discover all the detail they want...just organize it so the process is not overwhelming. Only what is needed, when they need it. A little extra effort in the website planning stages will ensure that your site has an intuitive layout, provides a good user experience, and converts visitors into customers.
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