Websites come in many forms, and they can be designed in many ways to please the eyes. When it comes to building a website, the appearance can be the first to satisfy visitors. But the usability is what makes them stay.
Millions of sites are available on the internet, all designed in different way. Most if not all websites have layouts where the articles and images are placed accordingly to create a a characterized look and feel. Most modern websites use CSS and JavaScript to enhance the design, creating eye-catching websites that can be incredibly good in attracting visitors.
But there are disadvantages for having a heavily designed websites: they take longer time to load and can be hard to follow by search engines. These can be a small issue but most people on the internet, and the search engines, don't like to waste their time waiting for a page to load and hope to see what they can't see.
Heavy websites are usually the ones that use heavy graphics with images adorning most part of the page layout. Curved borders, different background for different parts of the page, Flash user interface, heavily JavaScript, etc. can also contribute to the problem.
In general, a site that is heavily designed is usually meant to attract people within one category: appearance. Without considering how search engines will see it, nor considering how the usability of the site may affect its readership. This kind of website can suffer a drop of visitors, increasing its bounce rate to a significant amount.
Before a website is launched on the internet and compete with others in the real world, there are several things to consider:
Appearance is the Least Important Issue
Early web designers are usually influenced on creating an attractive website. They tend to focus excessively, and sometimes even exclusively, on the appearance of a site. They are trying hard to make the site look beautiful. However, on the internet, appearance isn't the most important thing to look at when having a website.
Appearance is important, but beauty that discounts the value of the appearance altogether can impact a site negatively. Heavily designed websites are usually heavy to load, and it's elements can't be properly structured for optimization. This can affect how search engines behave. Search engines are not much different than human visitors: if they don't see (can't see) what a website has to offer, they will just leave it behind.
Search engines are where most visitors of a site comes from. Unless you have a popular website with steady traffic, this can be the least of your concern. But most early websites depend heavily on search engines to get incoming traffic. Search engines don't see a web page like humans do. This is why a website should be well-optimized for both humans (properly designed) and search engines (onsite SEO).
Web design and SEO should have nothing between them. Both are considered to be the important aspects for having a good and friendly website.
Usability is to Achieve Your Purpose
All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources websites, e-commerce website, company websites, and so forth. To have a great and well-designed website that can really "sell", you must put usability on top of other priorities.
The usability of your site can help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do what they want and do what you want them to do?
Information Availability
Visitors comes to a site because of its contents. When they arrive, the first thing they see is the design. And after reading the information you give, the usability of the website comes next. Always have the information on your website up-to-date. Create compelling articles when creating an informational and resource website. If you're creating an e-commerce site, make sure that the product you're selling have sufficient information by mentioning every details. Provide easy steps for customers so they can check-out easily and contact you.
Information Accessibility
Not only that you must have your information available to your visitors, it must also be easily accessible. A page that gives a detailed description of your products is not going to help your visitors if they have to work hard to find it. In fact, when visitors must work hard to find something on a website, they won't be willing to find it at all. Either put the information straight away, or put a link to it in that place.
Navigation
A proper navigational system for your website is crucial. A navigational system is one by which visitors can move from one page to another. The first thing visitors do when they want to browse through a website is by looking at its navigation and see what the site has to offer. A properly designed navigation has a standardize location on all pages, and is able to make visitors go to all of the site's main pages by less than a few clicks.
If you want your menu to be JavaScript-driven, make sure that your site an alternative for people that don't have JavaScript enabled.
If your site has a large number of pages, it can be difficult to put everything in the form of links and navigation. To improve your site's usability, having a search feature can create an easy access to all of your pages. Giving your visitors a way to search your website will help them locate what they want, fast and easily.
It's always good to have a sitemap, unless your site has only a few pages. This allows people to have another route to the other pages on your site. It also helps search engines locate all the pages on your site, particularly if you use dynamically-generated links to your pages (like JavaScript-created links). To make your site accessible to search engines, make sure you set the Robots file properly.
Conclusion
Appearance can be the first thing to appeal visitors. But making them stay is more important. The importance of factoring usability can benefit both humans visitors and search engine crawlers. Usability improves the chances that your site will help you accomplish your goals. Careful planning must be done regarding these two aspects.
Professional assistance can be come in handy when you want to take things further. Their experience on the field and testing methods can implement the best according to your need.