Four factors influencing the design of a website

When a new visitor comes to your website for the first time an impression is immediately formed. The possibility of that visitor returning again is conditioned based on good or bad first impression. An important issue while designing a website is then to know which factors influence this impression and motivate the users to come back for more?

1/ The goal and content of a website The first important issue which need to be taken into account while designing a website is to clearly identify the goal and the content of the website (retailing, informative, referencing, communicating…). A website design must be adapted to the context or industry in which it works (Rayport and Jaworski, 2001 and Huang and Cappel, 2012). For example, the 7 Marketeers goals are to: -inform people on digital marketing issue by posting article -enable them to comment if needed and participate. Then, we proposed a light design enabling a speed downloading, with a home page that shows directly the last articles. A link to a Facebook page as well as a wall have been proposed enabling people to comment and discuss issues.

2/ Its usability on multiple type of devices As there are 91% of web users using their laptop but also 80% accessing web content on there smart phones (global web index survey 2014 Q3, 2014, which of the following device do you personally own), one priority is to create a website which is easily visible on the both devices. The 7 Marketeers website have been then designed in order to enable an easy navigation and usability and an adequate visualisation on either a laptop or a smartphone.

3/ The attractiveness The attractiveness of the website regarding diverse dimensions such as colour, font, layout and pictures often impact visitor’s first impression. Metz and Junion-Metz 1996 pointed that using of colours (dark and light) generates visual excitement that influence the visitor to further explore the site. The 7 marketeers uses modern and soft colors adapted to the kind of content offers.

4/The usability This is a key factor which determines the successfulness of a website. Usability makes the website easy to find and effective to use (Mebrate 2010). Simple and clear menus are developed to facilitate the navigation and enable the users to find rapidly its way.

References

Global web index survey. (2014), Q3 "Which of the following device do you personally own"

J. Jaworski, B. and Rayport, J. (2000) 'E-Commerce', "the 7C Framework". McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Rahman, M. S. and Ahmed, S. Z. (2013) 'Exploring the Factors Influencing the Usability of Academic Websites A Case Study in a University Setting'. Business Information Review 30 (1), 40-47

Zusman, R. R. and Landis, R. S. (2002) 'Applicant Preferences for Web-Based Versus Traditional Job Postings'. Computers in Human Behavior 18 (3), 285-296