A good website design will be unique to each individual organisation's marketing strategy as the design will reflect the personality of the organisation in a visual context. There will be aspects of the organisation that a good marketer will want to convey to a user on the internet which will immediately begin a conversation and start to form a bond of recognition between the two. No different to when we meet a new person for the first time. Consciously and unconsciously we scan and make assumptions about another individual as soon as we see them, the way they dress, do we decide they are business people, sports people or hippies? The way an organisation dresses or rather designs their website and they way they behave follows the same principle.

So, what makes a good website design is a look and feel that conveys an instant message to the user who is visiting the website. To understand what message they want to convey a business must understand who they want to have a conversation with, or rather, who they want to target to have a conversation with. This will be closely related to their business strategy. A small construction company may specialise in shop fitouts for dentists in Brisbane and Sydney, so they know that in all their marketing and advertising the people they most want to have a conversation with is a decision making dentist with a practice in Brisbane or Sydney. What makes a dentist tick? Is there some similarity between all dentists that will appeal to the majority and certainly not alienate any of them?

A good website design is just the visualisation of that conversation, plus it should follow the 'law of the internet' to include good copy, good navigation, fast download speeds and a clear call to action. Visually a good website design will bring instant feelings of comfort and knowing to a user, they will feel they are browsing the right website, it feels good to them, they feel like they belong in this type of website. The marketing department of the organisation who built the website will know what they want the user to do next and this will be different for every organisation. The construction company may want the dentist to look at some of the projects they have completed and read the testimonials. They may then want the user to fill in a contact form or to telephone them. This is the call to action, the pathway they will try to guide the user down using good visual and written cues. Not since the 1990's can a business afford to throw a brochure onto the internet and just say 'look at me'. There are too many beautiful websites shouting 'look at me' to stand out from the crowd. Your website needs to solve the immediate problem of your target audience and it needs to visually help them to do that through good design.

Bottom line is that a good website design meets the criteria of the organisation's strategy. If it successfully does that then it does not matter that the colour or photos are unpopular with some sectors of the community. It does not matter because the organisation is not trying to appeal to that sector and they know it. As long as it appeals to the audience they want to maintain a relationship with then it is truly a good website design.

Sue Wickenden - sue.wickenden@ismartsoftware.com
iSmart Software, Website Design in Brisbane, Sydney and London. Designing websites since 1996.