Here at Comit Developers, we make it our mission to help businesses build and maintain websites that our clients and their customers will love. We also make a point of trying to educate people we work with along the way, which is why we spend so much time writing informative blog posts like the one you’re reading right now.
Many times, the topics we choose spring from customer interactions and questions we face in the course of doing our work. Sometimes, we start to notice the same questions or misconceptions coming up again and again and feel that it might be helpful to clear them up all in one place.
We’ve created this roundup of 5 web design myths to help clear up some common web dev confusion!
1. The Website You Want is What Your Customers Want
When working on designs for clients, one thing we notice is that our customer-preference research often leads to designs that aren’t exactly what the customer had in mind. That’s when we go over the data and try to reinforce the point that a business website is primarily designed for its users – not its owners.
It’s a commonly-held belief among business owners commissioning their first website that the result should reflect their notion of what the customer wants. In reality, the best way to find that out is to ask them via surveys and focus group testing, and to let the results be your guide.
2. If It Works on a Desktop, It’ll Work Anywhere
This is a myth that we wish was true. Unfortunately, the majority of today’s internet usage comes from mobile devices, and the last time we checked there were what seemed like 8 billion unique devices out in the wild. That means making sure a website will work for everyone that visits it is a challenging endeavor.
It requires a thorough knowledge of responsive design, careful coding, and thorough testing. In short, just because it looks to be working on one device doesn’t mean the process is finished.
3. More Is Better
Sometimes, in an effort to be useful to everyone, website designs get muddled with too many features. That springs from a good place, of course, but it’s a dangerous path to follow in web design. It’s what can turn a sleek, modern design into a confusing, hard-to-navigate mess.
Remember what Yahoo’s homepage looked like in 2010? Well, we do too, and your business website shouldn’t have any resemblance to it.
4. If You Build It, Then You’re Done
For years, a large majority of small businesses didn’t have websites at all. And when they did, many were treated more like online billboards than useful marketing tools. By that we mean that it became a common misconception that once the site was online the work was done.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Customers expect business sites to be useful, relevant, and up to date. If they’re not, it reflects poorly on the business the site represents. That’s why we love sites that make use of CMS solutions like WordPress. They’re flexible, updatable, and can grow with your business.
5. The DIY Approach is the Cheapest Option
Today, many business owners see the dizzying variety of DIY website options and believe they’ll be a cheap shortcut to online success. In many cases, however, the results fall short of expectations, and in the long run, they can end up costing your business more than you think.
Consider the case of DIY builders like Shopify. While it may seem easy to set up a quick ecommerce solution through this DIY builder, once it comes time to scale your operation it is next to impossible to migrate site data. Not happy with your current host? You’re now looking at building a completely new site from scratch.
Using more technical content management systems like WordPress may cost more than your average DIY builder, but it provides for more ownership over your website’s data and easier host management.
Don’t Sell Your Business Short
Creating beautiful and functional business websites is what we do best. It’s why we’ve been so fortunate to have completed over 1000 website projects in the last 15 years. And believe us – these five web design myths aren’t the only ones we encounter. There are countless more than we could hope to cover here.
So if your business needs a high-performing website, or just some help making the site that you already have the best it can be, contact us today and we’ll help you avoid these pitfalls and many more. We don’t mean to brag, but we know what we’re doing – so let us help your business become an online powerhouse today!
