Websites are designed with a goal. A website's design should reflect that goal.
A website built to provide services should reflect it's purpose in its design through high accessibility and excellent usability.
A website built to provide information should focus on navigation and present information as clearly and legibly as possible.
A website built to sell products should lead visitors to their desired product as effortlessly as possible and place no barriers between the product selection and finally purchase.
At Burtronix we design for our clients' clients. The people who visit websites. We will often advise against design elements that may initially feel good to site owners, but will result in a lower return on investment.
The Web's users know what to expect from websites: sites they find familiar, they use, those they do not, they leave. Websites that conform to what people expect from them will see higher usage and more success. We design sites to both have a unique brand and perform optimally.
What your site visitors see
As the owner of a website you know you want it to look good. You will inspect every little part of it to assure yourself that it is perfect and with Burtronix as the design team, it will be. But what you see may not be what your site's visitors see.
A site visitor scans your site quickly for the information needed. Eyeball tracking research shows a golden triangle and a capital letter F area in the top-left of the site where key information should be placed.
For different functionality, there are also "hot" areas of a website that are scanned more specifically than others. We all know a Home link should be available in the top left, but Search and Help should be in the top right and various other functions have very specific expected locations.
What your site visitors don't see (but which still matters)
The semantic web can be thought of as the web that computers can see and understand.
The most well sold of such technologies may be SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). But basic SEO is just the beginning. With modern frameworks like RDFa, the internet can learn about elements of your site in whole new ways: Linking Facebook wall messages with products on your site and the person who posted it with the location of your store on a map without any human intervention and without it having been the intended purpose of your site. That is just an example of course. There are infinitely more.
If your visitors are blind
Or just colour blind or have any other visual disability. Yes, everyone uses the internet these days and there is no reason not to make your website as accessible as possible to absolutely everyone on the internet.
Accessibility is not just for the blind. Many of the guidelines contribute significantly to SEO and to the usability of your website for sighted visitors.
