More and more customers now access a company via their website, often ordering products, services or information online. This makes your website critical to the ultimate success of your company.To help you evaluate your own site we have put together the following tips, designed to give you practical advice on improving the effectives of your site:

TIPS ON BEST PRACTICE

1. Human Centred Design:

Think about who is looking at your site - A good website will be clear about the site’s aims and who the audience are. It will also evolve to meet users’ changing needs. A website that is designed considering users preferred ways of working will allow them to operate effectively rather than losing time struggling with a complex set of functions and an unhelpful user interface. Users demand an accessible site and are therefore more likely to trust a well designed system. A good website will promote a positive user response and enhance the company’s reputation.

2. Adherence to Programming Best Practice and Conformance to W3C standards:

W3C is an international consortium, where member organisations and the public work together to develop web standards. Most websites today are very sophisticated and the requirements of organisations can be very complex. So whether it is an e-commerce site, a site search system or simply user registration, ensure you use the right tools to get the website that you need.

3. Fast, Accessible & Usable:

Fast – The web industry knows more than any other that users want sites that are quick. Most users won’t wait for anything – they just click away.

Accessible – The code of practice of Part III of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 makes it clear that the Act extends to websites. The Act further states unambiguously that private and public sector websites must be accessible. According to WAI standards this means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the site and that they can contribute to the web.

Usability – This assesses how simple user interfaces are. Usability is necessary for website survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If the website information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave!

4. Search Engine Friendly:

You must understand search engine technology and employ the tools that will enable your site to get to the top of search engine rankings. With more and more customers looking to the web, your company must be visible.

5. Up-to-Date and Relevant Content:

People who return to a website like to see up-to-date and new content. This is why Arkom advocate Content Management Systems. This passes complete control over a site's content to the client and reduces the need to rely upon your web design company.


For more information on best practice web design contact Arkom on
0114  282  3444 
or click here to contact us.