Website aesthetics vs. Usefulness: What matters the most?

Design goes a long way in sending the right message across to your website visitors, but overdoing it might end up spelling disaster. Often, in the quest to create the most visually stunning masterpiece, the essence of the website is forgotten. In this article, we’ll explore how a few Web Design elements can create a negative impact instead of the desired effect. Remember, usefulness is more important than aesthetics, and we’re here to tell you why:

1) Elements should serve a function

Any form/shape/element should serve a function. However, these days, designers design the form and hope that the function will be served on its own. That’s not the case. While designing, identify the core functionality of the site and build your design around it instead of the other way around.

2) If it’s too beautiful, it’s also distractive

Beauty is distractive - and while it’s not wrong to make your website beautiful, if it’s too much it would end up distracting your customers from the real purpose of your site. Blend beauty and functionality and ensure that your site works as great as it looks.

3) Poor usefulness may result in high bounce rates

At the end of the day, you want to make users stay, read, or buy something from you - which might not happen if they’re unable to use your website properly in the first place. High bounce rates due to lack of a useful design might affect your SEO and lower your rankings

4) Fast is better

Incorporating too many visual elements might look great, but will slow down your site. With users’ patience waning thin, no one would hang around for more than 3 seconds on your site. Keep the flashiness to a minimum and focus more on optimizing the site’s performance.

5) Simple is elegant

Going overboard with the design and adding too much might end up confusing your visitors at the end of the day. Users like it simple and simplicity, in turn, makes your website more functional.

Getting these elements right and striking a balance between both might seem like a daunting task – but not to us! Hire skilled web developers and designers from Openwave Singapore today.

Leading Web Responsive Platforms & How to Choose Among Them

Responsive Web building platforms offer people with no coding experience a chance to raise a glamorous, user-friendly site. However, there is an ever-increasing variety of such platforms, and it is vital that you go for the one that fits your needs. Here are some factors you need to examine the below functionality to make a website responsive.

 

Features to compare

User-friendliness

Make sure that the builder’s design offers convenience to users, and is easy to navigate through. Simplify the map of the website, and add a few enticing design features for a thorough look.

SEO functionality

SEO is the bridge for your website to reach a good status on the search engine. Different website builders provide varying features, some of them helpful in the SEO area and others not so much. Ensure that you can find a web engine that integrates some sound search engine qualities into your site for optimal exposure.

Price

Evaluating the price is crucial in this process. Web engines offer a variety of tools, themes, and features, all of them for different price ranges as well. Examine your needs, and set a budget for yourself, before approaching the web builder that matches both.

Customer support

Building a medium of interactivity with customers is one of the growing needs of websites. Ensure that the platform that you choose allows you to easily integrate a messaging or chat box to engage with your audience.

Web development platforms

Below are examples of the leading web building engines to look among:

Wix

Wix is one of the most known names in the field of website builders. An expansive app store, as well as greatly responsive templates, make it one of the preferred destinations in the field.

BigCommerce

This is a reputed name with respect to eCommerce websites. It allows businesses to create sound, reliable interfaces as well as incorporate some great themes into the site.

Web.com

Web.com offers strong support for its clients and can integrate some quality features into your website.

Weebly

This is a platform that provides a massive variety of themes and templates to choose from. The builder also uses an easily usable drag-and-drop format that allows you to insert features into the website with zero hassle.

If you’re in need of professional help in responsive website development/design - Openwave Singapore can offer you the solution. We have been entrenched in this field for nearly twenty years now, and can build you a sharp, feature rich website to attract customers and grow your business.

Web Design Trends that are Changing the Internet Landscape in 2017

Last year, we saw a lot more businesses adopting the mobile-first approach and, consequently, implementing responsive design on their websites to make them mobile friendly. 2017 is shaping up to be another great year for Website Design, as we see many innovative trends are being adopted around the world. 

Here are some of the top web design trends that are transforming the Internet landscape in 2017: 

Layouts that bring the focus to the content

Content is still king, and more designers are waking up to the fact that people navigate to websites to read content and not just to view neat animation tricks. In 2017, we expect many sites to be redesigned to make the content more readable and clear, with elements promoting ease of readability. 

SVGs to improve loading times

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs) are relatively new technology. They are an alternative to traditional image formats like PNG, GIF, and JPG. They allow designers to produce images that can be scaled up and down to match any screen size without loss of fidelity (unlike other formats). What’s more, they don’t require HTTP requests, so pages with them load lightning-quick.

3D design elements

3D design isn’t new, but we saw the mainstream implementation of 3D elements on top websites via technology like Parallax scrolling. This year, we are going to see designers make websites that can be viewed on 3D wearable devices like Oculus Rift.

Colors helping the minimalist approach

There has been a trend in the market to build websites that have a minimalist interface and a clutter-free design. Bold and bright colors are being used to both emphasize the content as well as to promote a brand’s identity.

Constraint-based design tools

Developers usually have to create several versions of a site for different screen sizes. In 2017, the market is being flooded with tools like Figma that allow site makers to build a site only once and have it displayed correctly across multiple platforms.

Are you looking for to make a new website in 2017? Openwave’s leading Web Design & Development team can make you a custom website with leading-edge features at economical prices.

Five Festive Season Strategies to Help you Make Huge Holiday Profits

Statistics tell us that over 40% of all eCommerce sales are made during the holiday season. If you want to grow your revenues during the upcoming festivities, you have to plan out a marketing strategy in advance and ensure your website is ready to hook incoming traffic.