Once you get visitors to your site, you want to make sure they stay there. A high bounce rate (one and out visits) is viewed as a negative by search engines and is a missed opportunity for website leads or sales. An attractive, user-friendly website design is a must for keeping visitors on your site.
Paying attention to some simple, easy to implement website design strategies can go a long way in making sure your visitors are able to enjoy their experience on your website and will encourage repeat visits.
Line Length
Horizontal line length is an important factor when evaluating how easy your web page is to read. Reading long lines of text can cause fatigue and even result in visitors accidently reading the same line of text twice. Creating columns of text that are too short generally breaks up words that should be read as a phrase, which can break a reader’s rhythm.
Many professionals agree 66 characters per line creates ideal column widths allowing visitors to read text comfortably. Adjust the character count up to 75 if using only a single column of text, or down to 40-50 characters in multi-column layouts.
Fonts
Google’s PageSpeed Insights detects text that is too small to be legible and is a useful tool for testing the readability of your page. Google recommends using a base font size of 16 pixels and then adjust up or down for various design elements. Mobile testing is critical to make sure font sizes translate well to the wide range of mobile screen sizes.
Line height is also important to ensure optimal legibility. While the browser default line-height is 1.2em, we often find more division between lines works well for the overall design and enhances readability.
Limit the number of fonts used within the design. Too many fonts can be distracting and lead to messy results that will confuse instead of help your visitors.
Finally, be sure you’re utilizing a style for inline text links that clearly signals to visitors that the text is clickable. Blue underlined text is still used on a regular basis, or you can try a bold, noticeable color that complements your design but clearly designates a link.
Contrast and Color Choices
The clean website designs, which are currently popular, often lack enough contrast to ensure all text is easy to read across a wide range of monitors and mobile devices. Your combination of text and background colors or images should be thoroughly tested. Be sure headlines, panel backgrounds and dividers assist to separate content in a way that is helpful to your visitors.
We don’t recommend you go crazy with contrast either, but keep in mind contrast is an excellent way to add excitement, visually attract attention and highlight important elements such as call to action messaging.
Would you like a professional to review your website design? Contact the experts at Upright Communications.