Many people think of movement when they think of good web design: animations, effects, a video in the background. That can look lovely. But whether a website is good depends on something else: does it take your visitors where you want them to go?

Every website has a job

For most businesses it is quickly named: enquiries, orders, appointment bookings, job applications. Everything on the site has to be measured against it. An effect that makes nobody’s next step easier is decoration. And decoration costs loading time and attention.

How to recognise good web design

  • Clear in five seconds. Anyone who lands on the site immediately understands what you offer and for whom.
  • The next step is always visible. Call, book an appointment, send an enquiry: nobody has to search.
  • Just as good on a smartphone. Many visitors arrive on a smartphone. Everything has to work there, not just on a large screen.
  • Fast, even on a weak connection. Every second of waiting costs visitors.
  • Your customers‘ language. Copy your customers understand, not the jargon of your industry.
  • You can maintain it yourself. A new piece of text or a new photo, without the layout falling apart.

When movement helps and when it hurts

Movement is good when it explains something or guides the eye. It does harm when it slows the site down, judders on a smartphone or distracts from the actual content. Some people do not cope well with movement on screen and switch it off in their device settings. A good site respects that. On our own home page, a grid of dots moves, and it stands still as soon as someone has switched on “Reduce motion”.

Efficiency is the better measure

So the better question is not “Do I like the site?” but “What should happen when someone visits it, and does it happen?”. The website of the Ottakringer Kirtag, for example, has one main job: to withstand the huge rush on a single weekend a year. It does not need effects for that; it has to deliver.

That is why good web design often goes unnoticed. You find what you are looking for and do what you came to do.