Website graphic design is more important for your startup then you think it is

Let’s talk website graphic design for a startup ❤

Graphic design is vitally important for a startup. Saves money and attracts new customers.

In this article I will also share 10 important steps to make your website graphic design better which I’ve learnt from experience.

After we released beta I asked our first users for reviews and all of the sudden all complaints were about website graphic design. I was shocked, in a good way though, not mistakes or errors or even ux, but graphic design!

We concentrated our effort on making a very stable and solid service. We did perfect coding, perfect testing, perfect architecture. But we put all design tasks in our project backlog. So from the inside, the product was shiny and from the outside not at all.

So, the importance of design was not obvious for us, pure tech people, as we thought that if we do well functionality users will like it. It didn’t happen.

Why is website design so important?

• Branding. It’s the face of your startup. Especially SAAS, eCommerce, or blog. Those three have the biggest competition. Catchy and unique branding can make your project memorable for your prospective customers. Moreover, by just working on branding you can add value to your company.
• Marketing. The design is the key element of marketing strategy. It helps to develop relationships with customers and create competitive advantage.
• Impression. When users come to your website they judge your service straight away. If you can’t make quality HTML-page how you can build efficiently the whole product? A polished appearance builds trust and credibility.
• Sales. The design is a universal tool for attracting customers. Good design will make you money whereas bad design can ruin your sales funnel. It drives conversions and makes your sales easier. People are more likely to purchase from a business that put a good effort in how it looks to the customer.
• Psychology. People prefer to be comfortable. Soft sales, nice graphic elements, appropriate color schemes, can built comfortable relaxed environment for a user to experience and learn about your product. Design helps to build a connection with the customers through emotional reactions.

10 important steps to make your web-design better

1. Think about your customers. And ask yourself, search engines, and people around you tons of questions:
   Who your customers are?
   What do they like?
   What are they like?
   How to connect with them through design?
   What can attract them visually?
2. Think about the messages you want to deliver through your design.
   Friendliness?
   Consistency?
   Trust?
   Luxury?
   Think about the one that you want to bring forward and then think what design elements can do it for you.
3. Tell a story and make it memorable. People love stories and engage better.
   There is a reason why you have started your project or company. So, tell about it. It’s easy because it’s in your heart. It’s very simple. Tell through design three things:
   What problem are you trying to solve for a customer?
   What solution do you have?
   How it fixes the problem?
   Show the outcome using vibrant images. People love stories and remember them easily because it’s how our brain works.
4. Explain your product. There are millions of products and services out there. Design helps to answer why. Use explainer:
   GIFs
   Videos
   You have to make it all clear same second user entered your website.
5. Teach your customers by providing:
   Info-graphics
   Tutorials
   Webinars
   Checklists
   Charts and Graphs
   Books
   Detailed step-by-step documentation
   FAQs
   You should help customers to use your product more efficiently and show how to benefit from it.
6. Choose appropriate colour schemes for your goal and audience.
   For example:
   Red is vibrant and passionate
   Orange is energetic
   Yellow is all about happiness and light
   Green is healthy and abundant
   Blue is calm and stable
   Purple brings luxury
   White is pure and clean
   Black is mysterious and stylish
7. Engaging images.
   Images with people faces are the best in terms of engagement and attracting users attention.
8. Use modern nice looking fonts as they emphasize professional appearance. Just to name a few:
   Vollkorn
   Open Sans
   Arvo
   Lato
   Ubuntu
9. Think through your website element layouts because they influence the overall perception. Consider a few simple rules to improve your website:
   Leave enough space around elements
   Fewer items in a menu better
   Clear call to action
   Detailed and well-organized footer
   Nicely designed contact form
   Put search on top for a user to find it easily
   Place large image on top of a page to attract attention immediately
   Contact details is a must
10. Fast website media. Make sure your page load is good enough and size of images are as light as possible because it also can ruin the impression.

Nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds according to Kissmetrics.

Learning by doing

I would like to show you how small details can ruin the impression and how to improve it all easily. Anyways, hands-on experience is better than a thousand words.

Looked well but users asked for more

Before:

1. Menu: ugly looking outdated font, too many similar menu items, wrong button colour.
2. Sign up: no CSS styling on an input element, no borders on the form itself.
3. About section: all 6 elements don’t explain the service. Users still asked what do you do.
4. Plans section: Fewer plans, more clarity of pricing.
5. Contact form: no CSS styling.
6. Footer: no important links or social media buttons.

After:

1. Menu: newer font (Roboto), simplified menu items, fixed the colour according to a brand-book.
2. Sign up: set the CSS styling.
3. About section removed. Instead, we put explainer GIF.
4. API section was moved to the Documentation page and the explainer GIF moved to the top of the page
5. Plans section: recalculated plans and less unnecessary information.
6. Contact form: set the CSS styling.
7. Footer: added all needed features.

In conclusion, I would like to add that startup will always lack important resources like money, time, employees, but it is crucial to understand that your website is one of your main assets. Your sales force depends on it therefore, graphic design is vitally important for your success.

If you have any ideas or views on the topic don’t hesitate to comment.

And clap clap!