Ask 10 different people and you’ll get 10 different answers, but the truth is that both design and function are vital to having a successful web site. In fact, the two are inseparable when it comes to web site design, and achieving the right balance between the two is the key to creating a successful web site.

Why is Good Design Important?

Regardless of what anyone tells you, looks are important. Image means everything especially in the business world. Imagine going to a restaurant and being served by people in dirty, torn clothes. The food might be great, but people will be reluctant to eat there based on the staff’s appearance.

The basic function of design is to communicate. It says something about you to your customers, which is why good design is so important in today’s competitive marketplace. Since the visual appeal of your web site is so important, you can’t be haphazard about picking colors, graphics and layout choices. The message you want to send your customers has to be carefully planned out before you even think about writing a line of code.

Why is Functionality Important?

Using our restaurant example, imagine walking into a beautiful building with fancy decor, and not being able to find your way to your table. The maze of hallways may be tastefully adorned, but what purpose does it serve if customers can’t do business with you?

The same applies to your web site. Beautiful graphics, colors and animations are fine, as long as they don’t hinder your customers’ ability to navigate the site and conduct business.

What Can Go Wrong?

The most successful web sites marry design and function so well that customers don’t even think about it while they’re using the site - they’re just doing business.

Web sites fail when they’re out of balance. A web designer that tries to be clever or artistic is putting craft over usability. While graphics can add visual appeal, and even encourage users to delve more deeply into the site, they should never exist without providing some benefit to the customer. Don’t use graphics just because they look cool.

The same holds true for functionality. You might think it’s clever to make people run the cursor all over the page just to find the lines, but what you’re really doing is making the experience more confusing and frustrating. We live in a world with millions of online choices for web consumers, making a site difficult to use for the sake of art is like putting up a ‘Closed’ sign on your business’ front door. Likewise for the site’s layout. Creating a maze because it hasn’t been done before might win you an award for creativity, but if the customers can’t easily navigate to do business, then your award will be your reward, and that’s all.

If you’ve never put together a business web site before, you should consider hiring a professional web designer to assist you. Find one that understands the importance of visual appeal and functionality, and take a look at their past work. Go through their web site portfolio. Did the design jump out at you? Did you notice how easy it was to use? If you answered yes, then it’s likely because the web site is functioning the way it should - without drawing attention to itself.

Remember: Things work well when they’re in balance. It’s the way of life. When things are out of balance, chaos ensues. And that’s the last thing you want for your business web site.

Yesterday we concluded a 30 part series on low cost web site design secrets. You can always read the entire series by going to the low cost web site design category.

Today, we’re asking a different question - in web site design, does function influence design? The short answer is yes. The long answer is “yes, but” and we’ll get into that in a moment.

First, let’s look at why we’re asking the question in the first place.

Many times, when people come to me for a unique web site style, they aren’t in the right part of the process to be looking for a designer. Either the site is already built, and they should have found a real designer before deploying the site, or they are still at the stage of thinking where they know that starting a new business means that they need a website, but they don’t know why.

One of the questions you need to answer before you go to a web designer is, “what will this website do to increase profits for the company?” The answer may be an indirect correlation - better public relations. In that case, you may need a design that incorporates a forum or a weblog. Or you might realize that you can capture leads or make sales directly from the web.

A public relations site is going to have a different format from a leads capture site.

Now we get to the “yes, but”. You might find out that you need more than one site, or a site that is built with expansion in mind. For some businesses, it is smarter to have one site for capturing leads, and another for getting visitors from search engines. Or you may need to have one purely commercial site, and another that simply exists to inform, which drives traffic to the other website.

If you aren’t sure why you need a site in the first place, or what you want your site to do, one solution is to have a short consultation with your web site designer and your marketing department before moving forward. Between them, they can come up with a plan for executive review.

Nina

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