What Makes a Great Website and How do you Design One?

I am currently designing my company website and I ask myself the question what makes a great website? In some ways it is more fun to say what doesn't make a good website because during my reasearch I have truly seen some stinkers! Colour choices that make you reach for your sun glasses, font types that have you baffled and consulting code books while being bombarded with more advertising than bullets in an AK-47. In fact I think being shot with the AK-47 would be a lot less painful!

So what should you consider when designing you website?

Assuming you already know what your products are, you primary and most important person to consider is the user, your client, the buyer, the person who is going to let you retire before they have to carry you off in a box! You may think your website is a style icon that Andy Warhol would approve of which is fine, however if you client is homer Simpson you may just have missed the mark.

So apply the KISS technique, keep it simply stupid. Always consider your client, the average UK user spends 23 hours online with are US cousins once again winning with 32 hours with average viewing times. Average times spent on websites vary hugely depending on the wide variety of differing websites and the services they offer. However the most common factors causing a person to leave a website are:

Poor Navigation
Accessibility
Advertisements/Pop Ups
Slow Page Loading
Poor Font Choice

Poor Navigation: Like getting lost in any big city raises the blood pressure, misdirection and poor navigation around a website only gets potential clients annoyed and leaving just as quickly as they arrived. Constructing a good site map is essential to make the website user-friendly and making the most of every visitor.

Accessibility: It doesn't take much to run some beta-testing on your website before it goes live to make sure that it runs on most browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox and look as it should. A little bit of time and a little bit of code can make a whole world of difference to a customers experience and your balance sheet.

Advertisements/Pop Ups: It is true that banners and advertisements can generate extra income but is this to the detriment to your main revenue source. People often report a site as looking cheap or unprofessional with too many banners and people need confidence before they buy. So ask yourself just how much do those banners add to your bottom line? Pop Ups...... I don't think I have to say too much here, a tool dreamed up by web techs and marketers that cost you money and designed to absolutely without a doubt with a 100% success rate drive your customers insane and make them vow to never return.

Slow Page Loading: With good web design and coding this should be easy to overcome, with the invention of broadband gone are the days where you have time to make a cup of coffee while a website loads up.

Poor Font Choice: There are standard fonts for websites for a reason, they are easy to read and code. It may look good but if visitor can't read what you saying then you might as well be talking a foreign language that google translator doesnt recognise.

Here are just a few of the most popular moans that the average web user reveals when asks, but then again if you don't believe me why don't you go and ask. A little bit of market research never hurt anyone! In truth everybody has an opinion so what are your gripes and pet hates when it comes to websites? What has you closing a website down quicker than you can say "hell no."

Below for your amusement are a few stinkers, if they belong to you i am sorry, but then again you have got some free promotion!

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/worst-websites-of-2010-contenders.html