Is Simple Web Design Better? Does it Engage More Users?

People focus on the details so much that they often forget the basics of doing anything. The basics of a good workout is warming up before and stretching afterward, with doing simple yet effective exercises in between.

The basics of video gaming is sitting and playing a game for fun and pleasure. Similar things happen when people start working and they end up forgetting the essentials. Web design is one of the current interesting topics, because slight changes in a site’s design can have major improvements in visitor count and even conversion rates.

A simple design is often better, so here are some tips to consider, if you ever thought that a complicated design is more optimal.

Expectations Are Important

No matter what your site is selling, it is a platform where the design is surely going to attract or repel customers. Expectations play a huge role in what visitors think about a site.

A woodworking site shouldn’t have pictures of cats and cute animals, it should have wood and wood products, or rather, that is what most people would expect.

The initial expectations and what the users find on a site play a larger role than a pretty design. Matching those expectations is what you should consider and implement as soon as possible. Look at competitors and their sites. Those with more contemporary sites are likely to do better.

Familiarity Breeds Expectations

One of the reasons why you should consider something simple and modern is because everybody expects you to. When we become more familiar with a certain something, we expect to find it in a similar product. Heavy metal guitars need to have sharp corners and be edgy while blues and jazz guitars need to be rounder and fuller.

These are the expectations based on what we have seen. Sites should match a certain type of site, whether ecommerce, blogs, or a simple web presentation. Look at competitor sites once more, particularly successful ones and see what they are doing. Always compare sites and try to find the simplest solution possible.

Attentional Blinks – Simplicity Helps

When our senses are overwhelmed, our attention tends to blink and we will miss out on stuff. That happens all the time, especially when we are overloaded with information. Sticking to a simpler design will allow the user to focus on the elements you want them to focus on, like a call to action.

Overwhelming users will lead to them leaving your site, with a bad aftertaste.

Simple is great, simple means more time and effort on the things that matter. Follow these tips for simplicity in web design and your site should thrive, like many others that employ the same principles do.