Are some dental website designs going over the top and just end up confusing?
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should….
People who follow the Dental Media blog will know that many of our articles are borne out of our own experience as designers or discussions we’ve had with members of the dental community.
This article is no different and comes about as a result of recent contracts we’ve won (and why we won them) and also a long discussion we had with an existing client a few days ago.
It relates to the subject of web design and recent trends in the industry; particularly whether it’s all going OTT and whether some designs are slipping into “form over function”.
Sometimes it’s easy to get sucked into the “next best thing” and distracted from the fundamental principles of your trade – in this context what I’m talking about is implementing “bells and whistles” into latest dental website designs to the point where they become distracting and the user just ends up confused.
In the last month we won a couple of contracts simply because the clients felt that we were the best choice to implement a modern website, suitably equipped with the latest features but also balanced to deliver an excellent user experience.
I discussed this at length with an existing client last week who was also concerned that websites are becoming increasingly confusing – he was preparing to update his site and it was interesting and encouraging to hear his clear ideas about what he felt works – and also what doesn’t.
Here’s a quick summary of elements within web design which we consider may be starting to go OTT for the sake of form over function. This is a useful check-list to keep in mind when your designer is scoping out your new project:
Splash pages
The infamous “splash” page seems to be returning to some dental websites – this is where you will see a pretty opening page, often rich in images, used as the main introductory page to the website. However, not only is it rather confusing in that it introduces an extra click before the user gets anywhere near the useful information, it’s also pretty poor for search engine optimisation too. Splash pages died a number of years ago and for good reason – there is little useful reason to re-introduce them.
Scrolling home pages
Here I’m not referring to the index page where you just scroll a short way to get from the header to the footer – this is entirely appropriate and expected on modern websites. I’m actually referring to the websites where you have to scrooooooool and keep going to access more (often unnecessary) information further down the page.
This is more a demonstration that the designer knows how to do fancy transition effects rather than providing a useful user experience. That or they purchased a WordPress template and felt to compelled to use all the features without first considering whether they added value or not.
Huge background images
Whilst this can be pretty, there are downsides to consider too. Quite often you will see the technique implemented badly, either with images that are not on-topic or not optimised so that they slow down the website unacceptably when viewed on mobile devices. A website clearly needs to be aesthetically appealing but not at the expense of functionality.
Irrelevant and distracting ‘CSS3’ effects
An increasing number of dental websites are starting to implement effects akin to the old-fashioned animated gif. You may have seen these – spinning navigation elements, call-to-action buttons that grow or wobble when you mouse over them etc etc. Whilst some of these can be useful if used subtly, there is also over-use evident. Again, is this the designer demonstrating their skills rather than providing the best user experience? It’s novel but trust me, it soon gets very irritating.
The return to mystery navigation
I never thought I’d see this but there also seems to be a return to non-intuitive, overly-clever navigation systems. You know, the kind where you search around to see where the real information is but you’re never really sure until you click the confusing icon.
This might be appropriate for certain types of website but considering the typical dental audience, clear and simple navigation is the obvious way to go.
Summary
Any website, not just dental, needs to be aesthetically pleasing but also clear and simple to navigate.
There appears to be an unfortunate and unnecessary resurgence in the use of web design elements which satisfy the designers wish to show off their skill-set rather than balance a great design with excellent usability.
The check-list above will help you to identify which elements may actually be counter-productive when over-used in the design of a dental website.
If you’d like to discuss more or just need a complimentary review of your existing site, then please call our team on 01332 672548 and we can advise you about best practice.