In 2006, according to the Office of National Statistics, 60% of the adult population in the UK were using the Internet, predominantly to find information about goods or services. Stuart Smith, director of digital media at Aberdeen-based design consultancy Lighthouse, discusses why a good website is important to any business.
"Websites are vital to the success of a business for many reasons. The first thing that many of us will do when we hear about a new company or product is to search online and review the company's site. Websites act as a shop window for your organisation, open 24/7 365 days a year, so it is important to keep them looking their best at all times" explains Stuart.
Today at least 70% of UK businesses have a website, but believe it or not some businesses are abandoning the Internet. Why? Because when poorly designed websites fail to reach the level of success it was assumed they could achieve, businesses conclude that the Internet is not for them.
Stuart continues: "The first thing you must consider, whether you are developing a website from scratch or reviewing your current site, is what you hope to gain from it. Do you want a website that simply offers information on your company and the services you offer, or one that directly markets your products and can handle online sales?
"Once you have decided on the principle focus of your website you need to develop an easy-to-navigate structure that clearly and quickly directs users to the information they want. Complicated websites are likely to frustrate users. If they can't find the information they are looking for within a couple of clicks, they may quickly lose interest and turn to a competitor's site. A well designed website should be easy to navigate, use appropriate language for the target audience, present the company brand and meet current accessibility guidelines."
The Disability Discrimination Act requires all companies offering services, including online, to be accessible to all. An accessibly designed website not only opens up your audience to the 12% of the adult population in the UK who have some form of disability, it ensures your message is available to all potential customers, whatever device they use to access it.
"Accessible website design has been greatly misunderstood. Its origins are in accessibility for disabled people, but at the core of accessible website design is just good practice. It's simply about organisations making their message clear and easy to understand for everyone, by structuring their website's content in a well defined way that makes things easy to find. This can be achieved without any compromise in the company brand or corporate image. In fact, it not only offers lots of benefits to all website visitors, but also benefits the company in terms of simplifying the maintenance and updating of websites."
Looking to the future, the continuous development of mobile technology, which currently enables people to access websites on their mobile phones, is creating a new challenge for designers who must produce a website which works equally well on both a small mobile screen and on a computer screen. As technology develops, and access to the Internet becomes even easier, having a well designed and up-to-date website will become ever more important to businesses of all sizes.
"A key benefit of accessible websites is that they can be easily repurposed for new technology. For example they can be viewed on PDAs and mobile phones. Best of all, they help increase search engines rankings."
