The success of a website depends largely on its functionality and the user experience. However, the visual appeal of the website also determines how well the visitors perceive the web design. The graphic design, colours and images used on the website can help in roping in more visitors to the site.
Very often we come across websites that are loosely built and have nothing much to offer in terms of visual design. If you are planning to get your website designed or redesigned, it would be helpful for you to keep the below discussed points in your mind:
1) Poor choice of fonts- The visual appeal of a web design can be ruined if the fonts used for the content on the site are unreadable because of the style or size. The web designer must ensure that readable fonts are used throughout the site that enhance the reading experience of the visitors. Moreover, the designer must ensure that uniformity is maintained throughout the usage of fonts on the website. Disparate fonts can hamper the reading experience to a great extent, thus, ruining the visual appeal.
2) No highlighting colour for links- Use of hyperlinks within the text can help to a great extent in improving traffic to the targeted page. However, if the links are not highlighted, users would find it difficult to reach out to the particular page. Using bright colours such as blue or red can immediately catch attention of the site visitors and help in achieving the primary objective of placing the link on that page.
3) No images to support the content- Graphic design is a small but a very significant part of the process of web design. If a designer skips the usage of images that can support the text on the site, people would feel less interested to read the content. This is so because relevant and attractive images help them get an idea on what the content is all about and if the image is useful enough, they are compelled to read the text that follows.
4) Overuse of Flash- In web design, excessive use of Flash can slow down the load speed of the site and hamper the browsing experience of the visitors to a great extent. This is one of the major reasons of higher bounce rate and lower conversion rate on Flash-supported websites.
5) Too many advertisements- Another factor that ruins the visual appeal of the web design is too many advertisements and little useful content. The advertisements can clutter the look of the web pages and annoy the visitors who came looking for information with the hope of some valuable information.
To avoid these mistakes, it is important to invest money and time in the entire web design process and hire a highly reliable website design company that understands the relationship between visual web design and graphic design.