The world of ecommerce website design has changed a lot in the last few years. Mobile internet usage is growing rapidly, and has now overtaken desktop internet usage since back in 2015. This rapid growth in the popularity of mobile devices poses several challenges for businesses. If you sell online, then having an ecommerce website that works equally well on a wide range of screens, and looks good on desktops, tablets and mobiles is a necessity.
Current ecommerce website developers have long-embraced a practice known as responsive design. This practice means that a page is designed using CSS and HTML with Media Queries so that it will adapt to a range of screen sizes. Instead of having to design several different pages for each type of device, you create one design that works everywhere.
As with traditional mobile website development the latest protocol has evolved even further from just responsive web design adapting graceful degredation to true mobile first, progressive enhancement as best-practice for website development. As the term suggests, this is maximising the users' experience for mobile first then adding elements as the devices change to desktop as opposed to removing elements so they can work on mobile from an optimal desktop version.
The Hallmarks of Good Design.There are several elements that go into an effective modern ecommerce website:
- Mobile first development strategy
- Clean and easy to use navigation on mobile devices
- Fast-loading pages with small and optimised page sizes
- Responsive coding for use on a range of devices
- Ever present shopping cart information
- Easy to use search function
- Prominent add to cart button
- Delivery charges displayed on product pages
Some web designers choose to have clean landing pages that promote just one or two products, while others cover their landing pages with a huge selection of products from different categories. Both of these techniques have their benefits. Department stores and stores that sell a huge selection of products tend to opt for the latter method, whereas boutique stores may focus more on branding on their landing pages and choose to avoid cluttering them too heavily.
Common Design Mistakes.One common pitfall with image-heavy ecommerce designs is that the pages can become quite bloated. With the average home page size now more than 2MB in size with over half of that due to images and then JavaScript, in an ideal world, your home page should be as small as possible, so that users on slower connections don't have to wait several seconds for it to load.
Another common mistake with image-heavy sites is poor contrast. If you are putting text or image captions over the top of photographs, make sure that the text is easy to read. Test your site on multiple devices (and even multiple desktop or laptop monitors) to make sure that it looks good on all of them. Don't assume that just because the design is readable on your desktop, it will be readable for everyone.
The key to effective ecommerce website design is to make life as easy as possible for your customers. Confusing, slow or difficult-to-use websites drive customers away. If you show that you respect and value your customers' time and in some cases their first (and sometimes only) experience with your brand, by having a thoughtfully developed and designed ecommerce website, then they will be more likely to buy from you, recommend your company to their friends and buy your brand again.
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