Web Design Sheffield: Crafting Digital Excellence

Web design is a collaborative process, drawing on a range of disciplines within a web design agency such as graphic design, SEO, and copywriting, to deliver a finished product. Web design is the process of planning and arranging content on a website. The objective is to combine aesthetics (fonts, colours, graphics) with function (layout, navigation, accessibility etc.).

There are few businesses, if any, that can get away with not having a website. In the digital age, online presence is essential. Keeping pace with evolving technology means website design is now dynamic, to meet the growing functionality needs of both website owners and visitors.

A web designer uses graphic and technical skill to design the visual appearance, layout, and usability of a website. A web developer uses coding languages such as HTML and JavaScript to build and maintain a website.

Responsive web design is the process of creating web pages that function on all devices. A responsive website will automatically adjust scale and layout for different screen sizes such as tablets, smart phones, and laptops.

Usability in web design is a measure of user friendliness. Elements of user experience includes:

• Availability and Accessibility
• Fully functioning, good page load speed, active links i.e. not broken, responsive
• Clarity
• Consistent experience free of distractions and the user finds exactly what they want
• Learnability
• Simple to use and intuitive website, using web design concepts familiar to the user
• Credibility
• Perceived trustworthiness is essential to all websites, not just ecommerce sites
• Relevancy

If site content is not relevant to the user, the website will not achieve its objectives.

CMS is an acronym for Content Management System. This is a software product which is often referred to as the ‘back end’. A CMS is where a website is built, managed and edited. It is important for a website owner to be familiar with their CMS in order to keep it up to date with news, images, promotions, and events. This is a priority for website owners without a content management retainer in place with a web design agency.

A sitemap is a digital file detailing information about a website’s pages, their relationship with one another, and where to find them. Creating a site map is an important SEO practice, helping search engines understand your website quickly, and adding it’s pages to their index.

A lightbox is a popup used to draw the attention of a website visitor. They are a great way to boost newsletter subscribers or conversions with a promotion. However, website owners should only use a lightbox or popup with a message or action relevant to website visitors. These window overlays are often disabled in browsers because they can be annoying and get in the way of navigation.

Often referred to as negative space, white space in web design is the blank area around and within visual website elements such as images, graphics, navigation and text.

Designers of all kinds love white space because it boosts clarity and legibility. Careful use of white space creates a harmonised and focused user experience which impacts the ability of the site to convert visitors.

HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language and concerns the structure and design of a website. HTML is a computer language used to describe the structure of a web page. It renders plain text as web page elements, including text, lists, images, tables, and headings.

CSS is an acronym for Cascading Style Sheets and concerns the presentation of a website. It is a set of instructions written in web coding language, how to visually present a website to the viewer. Elements of CSS include colours, position, layout and fonts. Elements will be presented according to the users device, such as a smartphone or desktop.  

Pixel perfect was how websites were designed before we all started using smartphones and tablets. It is a fixed layout which remains exact, pixel by pixel, whatever device it is being viewed on. These sites require smartphone users to endlessly pinch and zoom. Thankfully, pixel perfect websites are a dying breed as responsive websites are now firmly established as the norm.

Taxonomy in web design is the classification system used to organise and classify website characteristics. The purpose of taxonomy is to help website users find answers to their questions quickly and easily. Website taxonomy is key to user experience and an essential facet of SEO concerning its influence on search engine ranking.

A text path usually located at the top of a page, a breadcrumb in web design indicates where the user is located on the site. Every step of the path is clickable, returning users back along their route from the homepage. For example: Home | Creative | Web Design. Breadcrumbs are another important part of the SEO toolbox, often displaying in search engine results to provide an overview of where the page is located within a website.

FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol and is used to transfer files between computers via the internet. Users upload files to or download files from a website such as a cloud storage account.

PHP is a recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor and is an open source (free to use) scripting language used by web developers to create dynamic and interactive web pages. Highly compatible with different database types, PHP embeds within HTML to add functionality to a web page without slowing load speed. The flexibility of PHP means it is fundamental to around 80% of all websites worldwide.

A web design agency is where you will find web designers creating websites. They are often surrounded by a range of disciplines to draw on during the making of a website. As an agency, rather than a single web designer, they provide a complete service, from design to go-live and beyond.

The result should be a hardworking website that gets the job done. A professional finish is usually the best way to make the right impression on visitors. Furthermore, a functioning site that ticks along in the background is a great way to bringing in leads. The best way to achieve this is with a web design agency.

Initially, web design cost depends on how your website is built. The DIY approach is to use a website builder like Wix or Squarespace, or by hiring a web design agency to do it or you. DIY is always a fraction of a professional job however, if you are serious about growing your business, website quality is essential.

Depending on who you go to and how complex your site is, web design can cost anything from a few thousand to tens of thousands of pounds. If you are being quoted the latter for a simple 10-page site, you are probably being taken for a ride.

Check out who has built relevant websites you like and also who your competitors and industry leaders are using. You can usually find a link to the web design agency right at the bottom of every page – if they’re doing their job right.

Go along to local business networking events and get chatting. Check out your contemporaries websites and ask who they used. Find out if they had a good experience with their web design agency and if they felt the project delivered value for money.

Put together a website brief, send it off to at least three agencies and see what comes back for comparison. The more information you provide at this stage, the more realistic the quote will be from the outset, saving you from toing and froing down the line.

Read the guide to what to look for in a web design agency for more insights.

Fenti offer free advice on how you can make every penny of your marketing budget work hard for your business. We’d be happy to have a chat about your website and perform a free, no-obligation site audit to see how hard your website is working.