CategoriesWeb Design

Tips to Improve Your Website’s Usability

Tips to Improve Your Website’s Usability
Modern website users are a little complex. They expect more! They don’t want any poor quality content, broken links and static graphics. No matter whether you are designing, maintaining or updating your website, usability should be the major factor. Planning and testing are the critical aspects to improve a website’s usability. Only with thorough planning you can ensure that your website is beautifully representing your business message across multiple browsers and screen sizes.

Plan, Plan, Plan

Yes, planning is the key. Create a blueprint of what and how you want a certain element. Gather all your thoughts and ideas and discuss with your developers and copywriters. They can guide you better on how to remove all the flaws from the website and make it more user friendly.

Cut Content

Trim down the web content and add more images, videos and audios. They should be able to deliver useful message to your users so that they can have trust on you. Never force audio or video playback on you users.

Look for Dead Links

Broken or dead links are always irritating. Moreover, they can also have a bad impact on your website ranking. Google consider usability as the major aspect in web design and numerous dead links on website means that your website is no longer for users. Make sure you eliminate all such dead links by using Webmaster Tool. This tool will help you identify, fix or remove such links.

Offer Sitemaps and Search

Navigation that is reliable and accurate always delivers excellent user experience. Since there are different types of visitors, some might look for a search function and some may use sitemap to look for deep pages. So, you need to prepare your site for everyone. Make sure you place search box in the upper right corner so that user can easily find it and look for relevant information.

Instructions Should Be Clear

Remove all the obstructions that can hamper the smooth transition through your website. If you have an ecommerce website, make sure all the instructions, products, description, pricing, everything is clear and understandable. Your users should not have to think about how to use the website or place the order.

NO Complex CAPTCHAs

CAPTCHAs are essential to prevent spams and bots, but you need to ensure that it doesn’t irritate your users. It should be easy to use and read. Avoid complex CAPTCHAs showing some short video or asking to select the roads signs or something similar.

Simple, Uniform Navigation

Navigation is an important element of a website. It should be simple and easy. Users should be able to reach the information they are looking for quickly. Avoid complex navigation that confuses the user or frustrate them. The navigation menu should be at the top so users can find and use it comfortably.

Test, Test, Test

When it comes to usability, planning and testing go hand-in-hand. You plan a thing and implement it, the next step is to test it. Testing ensures that everything is settled as per your expectations. No matter what additions or changes you do, make sure you test it and prevent all the errors.

WireTree is a team of highly skilled graphic and design management experts. We provide jaw dropping design ideas to our clients at affordable pricing.

CategoriesWeb Design

6 Must Have Characteristics of a Good Web Designer

6 Must Have Characteristics of a Good Web Designer
With growing Internet needs, consumers and Internet marketing has also increased. This has made many corporates eager to have their own websites. The positive aspect is that if the web is flooded with billions of sites then, there are also a huge number of consumers out there worldwide.

If you are passionate for making your business succeed online and you want to beat your competitors badly, then you must select a design which can make your site look outstanding. It can only be achieved if you hire a perfect web designer according to the need of your business.

A perfect designer can help you create a smart and appealing website which will make you stand apart from the rest of the crowd. Only a perfectly designed website will be able to fulfill your expectations. If a good designer is not available locally then, you can hire one from an offshore company or from a freelancing agency or from any designer available online anywhere in the world.

Before hiring a web designing company or a designer, do try to recollect information like what kind of services do they provide. Also, check whether their portfolio websites are working effectively or not. You should do proper analysis and feasibility study.

While searching for web designing services in Toronto, the main focal points should be:

Are they affordable?

The most influencing factor while hiring a web designer is to see if he is affordable or not. The money he is demanding is purposeful or not. Don’t just pay him blindly if you want profits rather than any loss. Do a cross check with other firms also. Cost is considered an important factor for online businesses.

The web designer you hire should be able to create a professional and impressive website. The charges he asks should be affordable, if not cheap. Don’t compromise with quality of your website for saving money.

Can they create impressive websites?

If you want to make your website stand out of ordinary then, it is must that you should create an eye catching attractive website. In spite of using old and common themes, go with newer designs. Just make it so interactive that visitors just love to visit it again and again.

Will their designs work well?

The website’s performance is enhanced by its functionality. Don’t just focus too much at design that you forget to provide its features. An innovative website works hand in hand with both design and functionalities. The designs should be tested to check whether they are according to need or not. Your site should work properly for 24/7/365. A good WordPress development professional knows the workings of theme designs from a user perspective as well.

Will they actually reach the visitors?

Your website, although designed in any platform, should be made readily available to all types of customers on all mediums like mobiles, laptops and tablets. Therefore, we can say that website should be made responsive. It means visitors from any corner of the world should be able to reach us.

A perfect web designer can make it possible through proper programming and designing.

Will it fulfill your expectations?

A website can be considered worthy if it fulfill your needs and purpose for which it was created. If a website is able to increase your social presence on the web, then it can be said that a web designer has fulfilled his responsibility.

Do they provide maintenance services?

The web designer whom you have selected should not only be in charge till a website is being developed but he should also take the responsibility after delivery. No wonder why WordPress maintenance services are also a big thing these days. Any types of errors and bugs should be altered time to time. If some new trend comes into existence then, he should try to update it in your site too.

If you’ll follow up the above factors, it will absolutely help you hire a perfect web designer for your website.

CategoriesWeb Design

2016’s Latest Web Design Trends that Turns Eyes

2016's Latest Web Design Trends that Turns Eyes
An impressive website will surely help to increase the visitors on your site. In 2016, various web trends are followed which can help you develop a responsive website. Trends for developing site changes from time to time. Its not worthy to keep waiting for a new trend and aesthetic design. If you are designing a website keeping in view the modern requirements then design the elements such that they are easy to implement and also pleasing to visualize.

If you are not aware of the latest trends, then following are the few examples:

  • Use Animations

    Animations provide strong focus as they create visual interest and interaction. They are growing fastest as a rising web designing trend.

    Animations in its both types, that is big and small, are perfect. If we want to focus on the entire design, give attention to scrolling, then big animations can provide the better effect. If strong focus is not needed, then small animations which come in various allude shapes and sizes, such as movement of mouse cursor and new page loading can be used.

  • Hero Images

    As visualizing acts as a sense of sharp attraction, it is considered that images of various trending super heroes and actors can seriously make your website more attractive and interactive. With hero videos and images the design feature covers up to show oversize image headers.

    If you want any dull or simple content to be the statement of strong visualization, then hero images can contribute a lot.

  • Card-Style Design

    The most popular trends nowadays is card-style design. In card style design, the content is just placed up in an oval styled container and just feels like being a baseball card. Cards are considered a simplest way to provide a structured appearance to a lot of content.

    Cards provide important information, such as the “About Us” cards and act as a guide to a customer. While a card can be presented in different ways based on design style, a popular technique is ‘Material Design’, recommended by Google.

  • Infographics and Statistical Charts

    To make a website more impressive infographics and statistical charts play a vital role. They just provide a graphical view or format which is easier to understand by customer. Statistical charts such as pie charts and graphs are just used to depict various figures in a readable way. The more the graphics used, the more interactive will be the website.

  • Responsive Designs

    The most important web trend on any of the website, is responsive web design. It is considered simple and cheap way for creating attractive and fully functional websites for businesses. To provide a responsive design use moving backgrounds and screen banners and avoid using javascript to a maximum extent.

    Responsive web design is compatible with minimalism. It also works smoothly with cards as it can fit itself to any screen size.

At WireTree, we have a habit of delivering amazing websites to our clients rich with features, security and latest design trends. Contact our web designers in Toronto to discuss your project.

CategoriesWeb Design

Does Your Website Fails To Load Quickly? Check Out These Possible Reasons for It

Does Your Website Fails To Load Quickly? Check Out These Possible Reasons for It
There cannot be a bigger shock for the developers and owners to know that their website fails to load quickly! After putting in all the time, efforts and money, a website is prepared to compete.

Post that, one has to bear the expenses of making it more SEO friendly. After doing so much and even succeeding to attract visitors, if the website fails to load quickly, all the efforts can come down to zero!

If your website takes more than 5 seconds to load, it’s time to pay attention to its speed. Customers have a lot of options to choose from and if you will make such silly mistakes, you will never be able to stay ahead in the competition.

5 Factors Which Slows Down a Website’s Speed

  • Website Too Heavy

    If your website is having too many heavy elements like images, videos etc., it will slow down its speed to a great extent. Even too much content or text can delay the loading time of a website.

    It is important that a website should have only relevant and important content. This will irritate your visitors, shutting your website then and there.

  • Images Not Optimized

    Most of the website owners fail to realize the image optimization factor. There are images which are too big and failing to optimize images of such sizes will only make your website to load slowly.

    Also, try to reduce the number of images to your website. One should only use relevant images only and that too, if it is really important!

  • Too Many Ads

    Too many Ads on your website can really affect its performance, eventually making it slower to load. Yes, it is a great source of income but you have to remember that more than three ads will slow down your website.

    Slowing down a website means turning away your actual customers away! Do you want to earn that small amount from ads at the cost of losing your customers?

  • Wrong Image Type

    There are various type of images, all having different specs and sizes. If you want to speed up your website, it is important that you choose light image types such as JPG.

    Using PNG is not a bad option but it should be due to some really important factor and not out of a random choice! So, choose light to load fast!

  • Too Many HTTP requests

    Too many HTTP requests can affect the speed and performance of a website. HTTP request have many benefits but if they get accumulated too much, creates trouble for a website. So, to avoid such a scenario try to reduce the number of images, java scripts, CSS files etc.

Need Some Help?

If after putting all the efforts, your website sill doesn’t load on time, contact Wire Tree in Toronto. We are the leading digital marketing and web design company in Toronto. Our experienced and skilled team resolve speed issues on regular basis and know exactly how to speed up a website.

CategoriesWeb Design

Which One is Good for Your Site – WordPress or Static HTML?

Which One is Good for Your Site - WordPress or Static HTML?
It is very difficult to choose the right platform to launch a new business website. Today, you usually have two options, one is WordPress and the second one is Static HTML. You have to decide which one is perfect for your site. And its very hard to choose!

Both of these have some advantages and disadvantages. It is important to understand these pros and cons before choosing any one of them for your site.

After reading this article, you can easily compare both of them and know which is good. We discuss some important points about WordPress and Static HTML to help you to understand which option gives you better value for money.

Pros of WordPress

  • Easy to operate and update

    Once you have created an account or a website on WordPress, you can easily update your site’s new information without getting any help of developer. You can add pages, images, products, blog post very easily on WordPress. Updation is as easy as 1-2-3.

  • In-built templates

    Users can find lot of professional templates which are available on the WordPress. These can be used to build your site. The main benefits of these themes are they are well-made graphically and are also mobile friendly. All these themes are used by professional web designers and developers throughout the world.

  • Have control of your site

    If you have a WordPress site, it means you have full control of your website’s various elements such as content and URL name. You don’t need to wait for any developer to make subtle changes or updates to your site. Any changes can be done easily.

Cons of WordPress

  • Need regular updates

    WordPress require updates very frequently. There is a chance to new updation will corrupt the database. To prevent this, you need a backup every time.

Pros of Static HTML

  • No need of maintenance

    Once you launch your website, you need to update anything. Just get the backup of site once and after that no requirement of any updation and installation on a frequent basis.

Cons of Static HTML

  • No updates and additional features

    Like WordPress, HTML website is not easy to update. It is very difficult to update, especially for beginners. You cannot add any extra features, such as a gallery and store, in your website. For any minor changes, you will have to hire a developer.

  • Costly

    Static HTML is costly because you need a developer for any little changes and you will have to pay him for his job. So, HTML website is costly as compared to WordPress website.

Now you know the advantages and disadvantages of HTML and WordPress websites. As expected WordPress has more advantages and is good for your website. Additionally, most professionals would agree that WordPress is a good choice if you want updates and changes on your website consistently.

CategoriesWeb Design

4 Effective Web Design Tips For a Better Looking Website

4 Effective Web Design Tips For a Better Looking Website
Website tells the story of your business, brand and services. No wonder, designing the website for a company is very daunting and overwhelming task. It is very important what color, font and images you use in your website. A good looking and awesome website will help to make an awesome impression. You will need to keep everything up to date.

Follow these tips to give your visitors something to remember.

  • Strategy

    Before making a design for website and setting tasks, planning is crucial. First, set a goal for whom you design a website be it school, institution, company or any organization. Afterwards, choose a web page design according to the client’s requirements. Sometimes people fail to plan their website design due to their busy schedule. At the end, they make website without planning. Here, you just need to pay attention on the landing page, content and color combinations.

  • Responsive design

    This is essential because the number of smartphone and tablet user are increasing day by day. When the user opens your website on tablet or smartphone, instead of desktop or laptop, it is important that design is mobile responsive. The screen resolution, image size, text size must adapt automatically on mobiles and tablets.

  • Don’t forget about buttons

    Buttons play an important role to convert your visitors into customers. There are some examples of buttons including ‘sign up for free’, ‘get your copy now’ and ‘start creating today’. Except these ‘submit’ and ‘send’ buttons are also crucial. When users move the mouse cursor on it should change color or interact, just to make it more impressive.

  • Make text easy to read

    Text is vital for your website because this is the one and only way to provide information to customers about your business and services. Don’t use colors in your text, make it simple with right font size and black color. Make sure, the background of website is white. If you use dark or bright color on website’s background, may be not all users will take a liking to it. So, make your text easy to read.

We live in the era of technology where everything is online. If you want to get your business online, these tips help you to get the best website design.

CategoriesWeb Design Wordpress Websites Hacking

2015’s Best WordPress Website Design Trends – And What to Expect in 2016!

2015’s Best WordPress Website Design Trends – And What to Expect in 2016!
With 2015 now firmly in the rearview mirror, we can certainly discuss what shaped the past year’s WordPress website design trends. At WireTree, we have seen web design evolve from simple GIFs to the now popular responsive themes. But the past year has been a defining year in the digital realm with many industry-shaping trends coming to the fore.

So, which trends made it big and which moved to obscurity? We set out to unravel this mystery by scurrying through our portfolio, the top 200 websites, popular WordPress blogs, and many more authoritative sources. It was exhausting to find meaningful insights from piles of data but we made sure the arcane nature of 2015’s best web design trends were revealed in full glory.

Without further adieu, let’s get started with the list.

Parallax

Parallax has pervaded into the web design like water in a sponge. Now almost every website uses it and the results aren’t always spectacular. It seems this three-year-old trend is now overdone. Without sounding like we are giving it an obituary, we certainly found a lot of websites overdoing it. This is a bad design that is plain distracting and gimmicky.

Often these parallax effects just take over the site’s content with exploding images, wrong transitions, and uneven corners. Users are left with nothing but fancy effects! Older devices reel under pressure to load a heavy parallax effect. Add a stock video to the website and you lose the visitor within seconds.

2016 will certainly see fewer websites use this feature. We recommend using subtle transition effects with smooth scrolling. Avoid heavy and goofy design with overloaded transitions. Polish the design with a refined sensibility.

Chasing Mobile Users

We said it in 2015 and we will repeat in 2016 – chase mobile users with more ferocity. A WordPress theme that doesn’t serve mobile consumers is useless. There’s no point in being insular. Non-responsive websites experience fewer visitors.

But that does not mean you should abandon desktop users just yet. There are simply so many features that cannot be replicated on mobile. It’s still a huge market. The relevant point to note here is to be mobile-first. Make sure the design layout is well received by mobile users. Chase mobile users depending on your customer base.

Infographics are Dead

Go back two years and web designers would have laughed at me. Yes, they were that cool back in 2014. But by the end of the year, they started to lose prominence. Getting data served in a visual platter with easy to understand information was quite a catch!

Even an infant designer could design these things. And that’s exactly what led to its demise. The histrionic approach to infographics deteriorated quality. Now, the visual part is often baroque cartoon graphics and futile information. It’s best to leave them all together in 2016.

Ecommerce

Seems like it is here to stay for long. A tidal wave of eCommerce websites has created a perfect online shopping experience. The constant strife among big players ensures that end-users are the winners.

If you are selling on your website, you now have the option to start with a minimal budget. Enter plugins like Woocommerce that turn simple websites into online shops. Real-world shops now simply install the plugins and make the transition to digital storefronts. Besides the big boys, 2015 saw a surge in mom-and-pop shops move online to serve local customers.

In fact, plugins consolidated their strong position with SEO Yoast, Canada Post Shipping Plugin, Mail Chimp, etc all making big waves. Expect this trend to go big this year as well.

Long Pages to Scroll

Users love to scroll down. It’s even better than clicking! Long scrolling pages help digest content faster and help in social sharing. Instead of a sectionalized content, long pages are a hit among readers. If you have a good story to tell, better do it in a single page.

Add appropriate depth to the content with relevant images and attention to detail in the content. Provide everything the user needs in one place. An added advantage is that it helps in search engine optimization. Even new websites are using this approach these days to get top rank in Google and other search engines. So, let them scroll!

Grid Layouts

When you have a ton of content to be displayed on a webpage, nothing beats a grid layout. The asymmetrical nature makes scrolling a breeze. The idea is to let the user scroll downwards and choose the most relevant content at a glance. Load times and page speed can vary depending on the data fed to the page.

Ensure that the grid is well-spaced, loads quickly and has loads of data to display.

Hamburger Menu

Hamburger is something so close to our hearts, it can never go into oblivion. So, when the Hamburger menu made it to the web design trends, it wasn’t a surprise that it quickly became popular. Our designers love implementing this little menu option. It adds to the eclectic scheme of things! Hamburger menu helps reign in the visual focus of the user which otherwise is scattered on the webpage trying to find a common point. Emphasis on content is also increased since navigation is hidden beautifully.

The key is to use this to maximum potential. Using it solely to hide navigation without any emphasis on theme integration is pointless. Instead of a guile attempt to change user focus, designers should find ways to blend it into the theme.

The Internet moves scarily fast. No wonder web design trends move to grave sooner than expected. It requires an exigent approach to stay updated. I hope you make notes of these trends and try to tailor them into your web design trends to remain competitive.